What’s the difference between, Oil, Crude Oil, Gas, Natural Gas and Fuel? (And others I may be missing.)
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In a general sense, oils are a type of chemical mostly made of hydrocarbons: strings of carbon atoms surrounded by hydrogens. [This diagram shows the hydrocarbon octane,](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Octane_molecule_3D_model.png), which has a string of eight carbons. Oils attract to each other and repel water, which makes them useful for lubrication, water-proofing, painting, and more. Oils come from a few different sources. Some are made by living organisms, like sebaceous oil (the stuff that causes acne) and olive oil. Others are made from fossils that have been compressed and cooked underground for thousands of years. Those are petrochemicals.
Crude oil and natural gas are rich, complex soups of different petrochemicals. They can remain underground, rise to Earth’s surface naturally (that’s what the La Brea Tar Pits are), or rise to Earth’s surface artificially through oil & gas wells. At an ELI10 level, I’ll pretend that crude oil and natural gas are the same substance, but crude oil is a liquid and natural gas is a gas.
Some of the hydrocarbons in oil & gas can be burned to create energy. These are fuels. Other chemicals in oil & gas can be used for other purposes, like propylene (the key ingredient in rubbing alcohol), acrylic acid (nail polish), and nylons (clothing fibers). Fuels, impurities, and other useful petrochemicals are separated from each other at refineries, chemical plants, and processing plants.
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