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Every day, around 800 million vehicles use about 7 billion liters of fuel.

Keeping gas stations worldwide filled with this flammable liquid is an

incredibly complex and potentially dangerous task.

But have you ever wondered how gasoline is made?

We visited the oil industry in the United States, Texas, to discover how

gasoline is produced from crude oil.

This is one of the most influential places globally.

The US oil industry is located in Texas, where drilling has been taking place

since 1894.

But it wasn't until 1901 that the oil industry took off, with one extraction

company tripling US oil production overnight.

Since then, nearly 60 billion barrels of oil have been extracted from Texas, and

if oil companies have calculated correctly, there's a reserve of about 10

billion barrels that have yet to be extracted.

Crude oil isn't just the main fuel for vehicles, it also provides 50% of the

energy we need.

Petrochemical derivatives are also essential for most everyday products,

such as plastics, tarmac, tires, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. This

sticky, smelly black liquid is the crude oil, the main raw material for gasoline

production. Crude oil is buried deep within the earth.

Millions of years ago, Plants, animals, organisms, and tiny creatures died,

falling onto seabeds and buried under the sediment.

Over centuries, this organic material underwent chemical transformation due to

heat and pressure.

Approximately 250 million years later, it has become one of the world's most

crucial energy sources.

This is Texas' black gold, the finest there is.

On this hot and humid morning, the team is starting its work, which involves

drilling a new well every month.

Over 2,000 new wells are dug in Texas each month, collectively extracting over

900,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

To keep the crude oil flowing, producers like Occidental Petroleum Corporation

drill an average of one new well every day.

After identifying potential oil and natural gas reservoirs beneath the

ground using seismic technology, the drilling site is selected.

Although this technology helps to an extent, but oil exploration is still a

gamble. If the well is productive, the crude oil goes to the refinery where

it's modified to make gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, and other products.

But finding oil and extracting it from the ground is only half the challenge.

They also have to reach the oil in this area known as the thermal basin.

Crude oil is located at depths of up to 4,000 meters, trapped within rocks that

are 542 million years old.

To access the oil, enormous engines are used to drive a diamond-tipped drill bit

into the ground.

However, the friction generates a tremendous amount of heat, so water is

continuously pumped under pressure to cool the cutting head.

The water then carries the debris to the surface as mud.

It's noisy and extremely hazardous work.

The drill's pressure must be just right, too little, and it won't cut, too much,

and it will break.

Also, while drilling, there's a risk of gas emissions that could lead to

catastrophic explosions.

While drilling, the team must constantly add sections of drill pipe using a five

-ton automatic dual wrench.

As the drill bores its way at a rate of 5 meters per hour, this demanding task

must be repeated every couple of hours, 24 hours a day.

If luck is on their side, they'll strike oil.

Initially, the pressure of the trapped oil causes it to flow through small

holes into the pipe and up to the surface.

But this natural pressure doesn't last forever, so to keep the oil flowing, a

plunger pump is used to maintain the flow for deep wells.

The circular motion of the engine's flywheel is converted into vertical

motion. It acts like a massive metal syringe, drawing oil to the surface.

The fluid from each well exits through a pipe, and the pipes from all the wells

feed into a main line that leads to a gas removal container.

The fluid contains carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and natural gas, all

of which need to be extracted.

These pumps are used to collect Texas's black gold, but these oil fields are far

from where the oil is needed.

So, a series of pumps push the oil into a pipeline for a journey of 1,000

kilometers to its destination.

This is the largest oil refinery in the U.S., with over 8,000 kilometers of

metal pipelines covering 10 square kilometers.

This plant can refine over 562,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

The noise is so loud that the plant's 4,000 workers use over 1 million ear

protectors each year.

This place is so massive that it not only processes Texas crude oil, but also

refines oil from all around the world.

Crude oil contains a mix of hydrocarbons, each with a different

number of carbon atoms.

These hydrocarbons have different weights.

Propane is the lightest, while the heaviest is used for tarmac.

The team removes and treats hydrogen sulfide, converting it into sulfur,

which a local farm buys and uses as fertilizer.

After heating the crude oil to over 370 degrees, it's pumped into the base of a

tower, where it rises as vapor, similar to boiling water.

Upon cooling, the molecules condense. The heaviest molecules settle at the

bottom. Lighter molecules, such as gasoline and kerosene, continue rising

until they also condense and can be extracted via a siphon. From every 191

barrels of crude 88 litres of gasoline, 48 litres of diesel, about 26 litres of

kerosene, nearly 7 litres of propane, and 32 litres of other products like

lubricants and plastics are extracted. This plant produces enough gasoline for

a car to travel to the moon and back 770 times.

The fuel is tested in an old engine that assesses its knocking resistance.

Knocking in an engine occurs when the fuel spontaneously ignites upon

compression in the engine cylinder.

Then, the lab can provide the data back to the refinery to correct mix errors

and ensure perfection.

It's time to open some valves to let the gasoline flow through underground pipes

to nearby terminals.

From there, it goes into huge tanker trucks.

However, filling a tanker truck is riskier than filling a car's gas tank.

A mistake while loading or unloading the truck could result in a serious

explosion. The metal body can generate sparks due to static electricity, so the

first step is to ground the truck with a cable and activate protection sensors

against overfilling.

A second pipe, known as a vapor recovery pipe, absorbs emitted vapors to prevent

them from dispersing into the atmosphere.

About 4 million litres of gasoline is transported to gas stations every day.

After pouring the gasoline into large tanks, it's ready for consumption.

The next time you fill up your tank and think about the high fuel costs, take a

moment to acknowledge the sweat and toil of the labourers and oil producers who

make it all happen.

If you want to know how sheep's wool is converted into clothes, watch the video

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