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Gasoline in a glass jar. Gasoline (North American English) or petrol (Commonwealth English) is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines.
Retail markup over crude oil and wholesale gasoline, 2014–2019 Oil, gas, and diesel prices RBOB Gasoline Prices. In 2008, a report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates stated that 2007 had been the year of peak gasoline usage in the United States, and that record energy prices would cause an "enduring shift" in energy consumption practices. [6]
Diesel fuel has many colloquial names; most commonly, it is simply referred to as diesel.In the United Kingdom, diesel fuel for road use is commonly called diesel or sometimes white diesel if required to differentiate it from a reduced-tax agricultural-only product containing an identifying coloured dye known as red diesel.
The largest share of oil products is used as "energy carriers", i.e. various grades of fuel oil and gasoline. These fuels include or can be blended to give gasoline, jet fuel , diesel fuel , heating oil , and heavier fuel oils.
Petroleum is used mostly, by volume, for refining into fuel oil and gasoline, both important primary energy sources. 84% by volume of the hydrocarbons present in petroleum is converted into fuels, including gasoline, diesel, jet, heating, and other fuel oils, and liquefied petroleum gas. [90]
Petroleum refinery in Anacortes, Washington, United States. Petroleum refining processes are the chemical engineering processes and other facilities used in petroleum refineries (also referred to as oil refineries) to transform crude oil into useful products such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline or petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil and fuel oils.
Conventional diesel is similar to gasoline in that it is a mixture of aliphatic hydrocarbons extracted from petroleum. Diesel may cost more or less than gasoline, but generally costs less to produce because the extraction processes used are simpler. Some countries (particularly Canada, India and Italy) also have lower tax rates on diesel fuels.
The history of gasoline started around the invention of internal combustion engines suitable for use in transportation applications. The so-called Otto engines were developed in Germany during the last quarter of the 19th century. The fuel for these early engines was a relatively volatile hydrocarbon obtained from coal gas.