What kind of goods are not traded in the world, inflating their prices and constantly competing with other products for popularity and sales. Everything from cosmetics to grains finds a buyer today - so what is the best-selling product?
Black gold
According to the publication of world prices and data from the international exchange NYMEX Division light, the best-selling commodity in the world is crude oil - an oily black liquid with flammable properties. The composition of this mineral includes various carbons with a wide variety of structures - their molecules can be either long or normal, branched or closed in rings, etc. The distillation process of crude oil produces products such as fuel oil, gasoline, diesel fuel, lighting kerosene and jet fuel.
Oil can be dissolved in an organic solvent, but it almost never dissolves in water.
Also in the composition of crude oil there are small amounts of sulfur, oxygen and nitrogen compounds. Basically, it consists of hydrocarbon, asphalt and ash parts, as well as sulfur and porphyrins. Petroleum hydrocarbons are divided into naphthenic, methane and aromatic groups - it is the methane group that is the most stable, while the most unstable group is aromatic, contains a minimum of hydrogen and is the most toxic component of oil. The cost of oil is largely dependent on the presence of sulfur in it, since this widespread corrosive impurity must be removed during refining. As a result, the price of oil with a high sulfur content is much lower than the price of low-grained oil.
Crude oil characteristics
Crude oil is produced directly from boreholes passing through oil reservoirs. When leaving them, oil contains water, rock particles, as well as gases and salts that are dissolved in it. These impurities significantly complicate the transportation and processing of oil, and also cause corrosion of metal parts of equipment. Therefore, in order to export or supply crude oil to remote refineries, crude oil must be processed industrially, removing all foreign matter from it.
The lightest hydrocarbons and gas must be separated from the composition of raw materials, since these valuable products are easily lost during storage.
Crude oil, cleaned of gases, water and impurities, is delivered to refineries, where it is processed and converted into various petroleum products. The quality of crude oil and products from it determines the composition of the raw material, on which the direction of its processing and the quality of final oil products depend.
