🚀 Inventions and machines 🧪 Materials and safety

Oil

📖 In short

Oil is a thick black liquid found deep in the Earth, and people call it “black gold” because it's so valuable. From it we make the petrol that runs cars and planes, and also plastic and many things we use every day.

🤩 Did you know?

The Arab countries of the Gulf have the biggest oil reserves in the world.
Venezuela has very large oil reserves.
Oil is measured in a unit called the barrel.
Plastic, paints, some medicines and clothes are made from oil.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 How did oil form?

Millions of years ago tiny sea creatures died and sank to the seabed, then were buried under mud and sand. With pressure, heat and millions of years they turned into oil.

🔍 Getting oil out

Scientists search for oil under land and sea, then very deep wells are drilled and the oil is pumped out and carried in long pipelines or huge ships called tankers.

💡 Refining

At a refinery oil is heated and separated into many parts: petrol, diesel, jet fuel, gas, oils, and the asphalt used to surface roads.

🎯 Oil and the environment

Oil doesn't renew itself, and burning it pollutes the air. If it leaks into the sea, it harms birds and fish. That's why the world is looking for clean energy like sunshine and wind today.