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Saturday 5 November 2016

Oil

Oil is a greasy, inflammable chemical substance that usually does not mix with water and has a high carbon and hydrogen content.

Some oils are made from plants and used in foods and for cooking. Plant oils that people use include African oil palm, maize (corn), olive, peanut, soy, and sunflower. There are also animal-based oils such as butter and lard.

Other kinds of oil are made from crude oil (petroleum) which comes from under the ground. Oil wells are used to bring the oil up to the surface. The oil is then transported to refineries where it is distilled into fuel for heating or transportation. Oils from crude oil are also used to make lubricants.


Archaeological evidence has been found of olive oil being used for cooking near Nazareth in present day Israel back in 5800 BC, indicating that it was a diet staple 4,000 years before the time of the biblical patriarchs.

Olive oil was a most important product in the economy of the ancient Hebrews. It was used for cooking, lighting, medicinally and after bathing, the body was anointed with oil.

Olive Oil

The ancient Egyptians used sesame oil, one of the first oil to be used for cooking purposes.

Oil lamps of a crude sort have been known since pre-Roman times.

In 1780 a Genevan physicist and chemist known as Ami Argand devised a much-improved oil lamp. They were first adopted by the well-to-do, but soon spread to the middle classes and eventually the less well-off as well.


Snake oil was introduced to the US by Chinese laborers who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad. Derived from the Chinese water snake, snake oil was rich in the omega-3 acids that help reduce inflammation and was quite effective, especially when used to treat arthritis and bursitis.

Clark "The Rattlesnake King" Stanley, sold "100% Snake Oil" in the late 19th and early 20th century. It did not actually contain any snake oil. Hence the term "Snake Oil Salesman".

On August 27, 1859 petroleum was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well.

The March 18, 1967 Torrey Canyon oil spill off the south-west coast of the United Kingdom, was at the time the world's worst oil spill. The estimated 25–36 million gallons (94–164 million liters) of crude oil that spilled into the ocean gave lift to the emerging environmental movement.


On June 3, 1979, the oil rig named Ixtoc I, owned by the Mexican government-operated oil company Pemex, suffered a blowout and began leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The exact cause of the blowout was a failure in the drilling equipment, which led to the uncontrolled release of oil and gas from the well.

The wellhead remained uncapped, and efforts to stop the leak were initially unsuccessful. It took almost nine months to fully cap the well and stop the flow of oil. During that time, an estimated 3.3 million barrels (140,000 metric tons) of crude oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico, making it one of the largest oil spills in history at the time.

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, owned by Transocean and leased by British Petroleum (BP), experienced a blowout while drilling an exploratory well called Macondo in the Gild of Mexico.

The blowout caused a massive explosion on the rig, resulting in the loss of 11 crew members' lives and the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon two days later. The incident led to the release of an estimated 4.9 million barrels (approximately 210 million gallons) of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of 87 days. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is considered to be the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry

The Deepwater oil spill had devastating environmental, economic, and social consequences. The oil contaminated large areas of the Gulf of Mexico, affecting marine and coastal ecosystems, including fisheries, coral reefs, and wetlands. It caused the death of numerous marine animals, including birds, dolphins, sea turtles, and fish, and harmed their habitats.

Americans spill 180 million gallons of used oil per year, most of which ends up in waterways.

Whale oil was such an effective lubricant that within three years of the 1972 US whale killing ban, yearly automotive transmission failures had climbed from under 1 million, to over 8 million.

The word "essential" in "essential oil" doesn't mean "important," but rather "the essence of". So oil of clove smells like clove, capturing the "essence" of the plant, and therefore can be called an essential oil.


"Oil" is the favorite word of people building online dating profiles in the U.S. states of Texas, Oklahoma, and North Dakota.

In Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, oil is cheaper than water.

Christianitytoday.com

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