Petroleum Industry

The petroleum industry is a very large one. It involves many activities that are vital before we can be able to enjoy the petroleum products. Petroleum Industry is regarded as one of the most profitable business to venture. Most of the world rich people are in the petroleum industry. The people in the industry have a lot of money and have led to growth of other sectors that they have invested their huge monies in. The two there sectors that require a lot of money to venture in and have been highly developed because of the petroleum money is the airlines transport, hotel industry and the sporting with the fuel tycoons being owners of the largest sporting clubs in the world.

Importance of Petroleum Industry

The Petroleum Industry does the global work of exploring for crude oil which is the raw material for petroleum products. When they discover crude oil, they embark extraction. After extraction the petroleum companies can either refine the products or sell them to other countries that do not have crude oil. It is then the work of the importing country to refine crude oil to get the finished products. Countries that have petroleum refining plants in their country are the ones that import the raw crude oil. Other countries that do not have refinery plants are forced to import refined products which are of course expensive. The petroleum Industry is also responsible for marketing petroleum products. They also have to make sure that they create utility by taking the products close to the market. They are thus responsible for transportation which could be via pipelines or tankers. The main products of this industry are petrol and fuel oil. Other products include plastics, fertilizers, solvents, pesticides, tar and pharmaceuticals. Petroleum is the major contributor to industrialization as a lot of energy in industries.

Environmental Impact

Petroleum industries have got a lot of by products. These products have in most of the times been directed to rivers thus causing a lot of water pollution. Oil spillage especially when pipe lines are used to transport petroleum products in oceans and lakes is very common. During combustion of petroleum fuel, green house gasses and other by products are emitted. These cause pollution and slow but gradual depletion of the ozone layer. During refining, petroleum companies emit volatile compounds. The emissions are organic compounds and they react and lead to formation of a smog which is also known as ground-level-ozone.