Subscribe to the Elements free mailing list for more like this
What Products Are Made from a Barrel of Oil?
This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email every week.
From the gasoline in our cars to the plastic in countless everyday items, crude oil is an essential raw material that shows up everywhere in our lives.
With around 18 million barrels of crude oil consumed every day just in America, this commodity powers transport, utilities, and is a vital ingredient in many of the things we use on a daily basis.
This graphic visualizes how much crude oil is refined into various finished products, using a barrel of oil to represent the proportional breakdown.
Barrel of Oil to Functional Fuel and More
Crude oil is primarily refined into various types of fuels to power transport and vital utilities. More than 85% of crude oil is refined into fuels like gasoline, diesel, and hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGLs) like propane and butane.
Along with being fuels for transportation, heating, and cooking, HGLs are used as feedstock for the production of chemicals, plastics, and synthetic rubber, and as additives for motor gasoline production.
| Refined Crude Oil Product | Share of Crude Oil Refined |
|---|---|
| Gasoline | 42.7% |
| Diesel | 27.4% |
| Jet fuel | 5.8% |
| Heavy fuel | 5.0% |
| Asphalt | 4.0% |
| Light fuel | 3.0% |
| Hydrocarbon gas liquids | 2.0% |
| Other | 10.1% |
Source: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
Crude oil not only powers our (Read more...)