The oil industry is a very large network of inter-related businesses that are reliant on oil and oil-based products. Oil is a liquid mineral extracted from the ground. When processed, oil yields many different products encompassing domestic, medical and mechanical necessities. The main characteristic of oil is its being hydrophobic and lipophilic – the former meaning that it does not and cannot mix with water, while the latter meaning that it mixes well with other oils.
The Middle East is renowned for its oil industry, which is present in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Oman, Qatar and Yemen. Because of the huge volume of oil present in the region, wars have been fought in the quest to control the supply of oil. But despite the fact that much of the world’s oil supplies are present in the Middle East, there are also other parts of the world that act as key minority players in the oil industry. In Africa, several countries are considered to be very oil-rich. Four provinces in Algeria have oil fields, and in Angola, 11 oil fields are present in just one province of the Lower Congo fan. Egypt, one of the first countries that extracted oil from the ground, is still one of the other sources of oil in the continent, as well as the Equatorial Guinea and Gabon and the war-torn countries of Libya and Nigeria.
The oil industry is one of the very influential aspects of global trade and business. The movement in oil prices triggers the increase and decrease of other market prices, especially in third world countries. The increase is felt primarily in gasoline and kerosene prices. Other sectors affected by the shifting of the price range of world oil includes the prices of organic goods (vegetables, fruits, fish, ****, beef, chicken and poultry, etc.), public transportation costs, vehicle and automotive supplies and liquefied petroleum gas or LPG.
Another reason that the oil industry is important is because a large section of the world is dependent on electricity and energy, and oil constitutes one of the most important sources of energy consumed worldwide, either domestically inside houses or industrially for operation of many businesses worldwide.