Cell Phones, Aspirin, Toilets, and 60 Other Byproducts of Crude Oil

What are Byproducts of Crude Oil?

When many Americans think of oil production, we imagine a straight pipeline from an oil rig to our local gas station.

But crude oil stretches much farther than that. In fact, gasoline only makes up 45% of the byproducts created from crude oil.

Modern society is intimately dependent on oil and gas production. The energy to run nations, businesses, and homes is supplied by crude oil.

From medicines to motorcycle helmets, and plastics to paints, byproducts of crude oil can be found in nearly every corner of our world. In fact, there are over 6,000 of these items.

To see some examples of this, let's consider your morning routine.

Your Morning Routine

The list of products that use petroleum, or processed crude oil, is enormous and wide ranging. The average person interacts with hundreds of these products every day.

In fact, many of those happen in the first hour of the day. For most people, that looks something like this:

After hitting snooze on your phone alarm, you wake up, stretch, and use the restroom.

After a hot shower, since your skin has been dry, you put on some lotion. You put on your eyeglasses or contact lenses, and before you leave the bathroom, you take an aspirin to beat that headache you woke up with.

Back in your room, you get dressed, slip on your shoes and toss some clothes in the laundry.

You make your way to the kitchen and turn on your coffee maker before starting some breakfast.

You notice that the garbage is overflowing, and your teenager has ignored it (again), so you pull out the trash bag and take it to the dumpster.

You check your watch and notice it's time to leave, so you grab your cell phone, your favorite pen, and head out the door.

And then, yes, you climb into your vehicle and use gasoline to drive to work.

72 Byproducts of Crude Oil

Here's a list of other every day petroleum-based products you may not normally think of: