Cracking crude oil video
Crude oil is a finite resource. Petrol and other fuels are produced from it using fractional distillation. Cracking is used to convert long alkanes into shorter, more useful hydrocarbons. Once crude oil is extracted from the ground, it must be transported and refined into petroleum products that have any value. Those products must then be transported to end-use consumers or retailers (like gasoline stations or the company that delivers heating oil to your house, if you have an oil furnace).