In this blog post, we’ll take you on a fascinating journey to discover how everyday items like shampoo, cosmetics, and detergents—which we use every day—are derived from petroleum.
Shampoo, cosmetics, and detergent. These are essential products in our lives, and these three items provide us with cleanliness. Shampoo washes away the fatigue of the day, cosmetics conceal skin imperfections and boost our confidence, and detergent keeps our clothes and homes clean. We take their existence for granted. Without these products, our daily lives would be vastly different. They make us clean and help us look our best. They turn clothes stained with grime white, conceal dark freckles with a natural skin tone, and breathe life into our hair. To use a color analogy, they give the impression of transforming black into something white and bright.
But what if I told you that these products are actually made of black? They all originate from dark, tar-like petroleum. This fact might come as quite a surprise to you. Few people realize that the products that make our lives convenient and beautiful actually originate from petroleum. Not many people are aware that the origins of so many products we now take for granted lie in petroleum. But without petroleum, our lives would be vastly different, and its existence in this world holds significance far beyond that of a mere resource.
Oil is not merely a raw material for products; it is a vital foundation that sustains modern civilization. It is the fuel that powers cars, the energy that runs factories, and the driving force behind the global economy. When we recall that countless products we use every day originate from oil, we are reminded once again of its importance. So, let’s take a step-by-step look at where and how this stuff called oil—the origin of so many products—is obtained, rather than assuming it just fell from the sky.
First, let’s examine the ancestors of oil. Crude oil is the “father,” and the “grandfather” is the oil well; oil is finally obtained after undergoing two refining processes. So, let’s venture further to find these oil wells and crude oil. Oil wells are formed when organic matter left behind by organisms that lived in past geological eras is subjected to 500 atmospheres of pressure, geothermal heat ranging from 50°C to 150°C, and a period of over a million years. This process is the result of nature’s marvelous work spanning tens of millions of years, and oil can be described as a kind of “liquid gold” created by the Earth. That is why oil wells have formed deep underground where these conditions are met. Now, there is only one remaining problem: how do we extract this oil from deep underground? Simply put, it involves drilling a hole and pumping it up through a pipe. However, since most oil wells are located in the ocean rather than on land, there are many challenges.
But what is the true strength of the Korean people? The Miracle on the Han River, surpassing even Germany’s Miracle on the Rhine! Korea’s shipbuilding industry has developed what is known as a “drillship.” These drillships, typically 220–250 meters long and 35–45 meters wide, drill holes in the seabed, insert pipes, and extract crude oil—but the drilling process itself is no easy feat. Try digging a hole in the sandbox at a playground right now! You’ll be able to dig down to a certain depth, but if you keep digging, you’ll easily notice that the sand on the sides starts to collapse. It’s the same on the seabed. That’s why, once a certain depth is reached, support pipes are installed to prevent the hole from collapsing, and cement is injected between the hole and the pipes. These operations—drilling, casing, and cementing—are considered a single set of procedures. By repeating these steps, we finally reach the oil well we were aiming for.
Next, to regulate the flow from these wells, we install a “Christmas tree” consisting of valves and chokes. The name comes from its resemblance to a Christmas tree once installed. It’s said that only after going through this long and complex process can we finally extract the “grandfather of oil”—the oil well—so we can consider ourselves blessed to be able to use such products at such low prices. But we mustn’t let our guard down! The well is still on the seabed and hasn’t been refined into crude oil yet.
Exhausted from the long journey, the aging well is about to give birth to its “child”—crude oil. Let’s take a look at this process. The wells on the seabed are transported via pipes to an FPSO or production facilities. FPSO? Production facilities? These are the essential elements needed to turn this crude oil into refined oil. Looking at the most representative FPSO, FPSO stands for Floating Production Storage Offloading Unit—a vessel that floats on the sea, produces and stores crude oil, and then transfers it to oil tankers. The crude oil brought up through the drilling process on the drillship is separated in the FPSO’s separator, a process based on a simple principle. Crude oil consists mainly of gas, oil, and water, which form distinct layers due to differences in density: the heaviest water settles at the bottom, followed by the oil, and the lightest gas rises to the top. Therefore, a hole is drilled at the bottom to separate the water, a hole at the top to separate the gas, and a partition in the middle to separate the crude oil. Finally, our protagonist, the crude oil, has completed its long, long journey and stands alone.
Now standing alone, the crude oil sets off on a cruise aboard an oil tanker to rest, before entering a fractional distillation plant to give birth to its son, petroleum. In the fractional distillation plant, separation is achieved by utilizing differences in boiling points. Let’s take a brief look at water and methanol. Water boils at 100°C, while methanol boils at 64.1°C. If a mixture of water and methanol is heated to 80°C, the water remains liquid because it has not yet reached its boiling point, but the methanol boils and turns into a gas, with the lighter gas rising to the top. It is precisely this principle that is used to separate crude oil into petroleum, gasoline, kerosene, diesel, heavy oil, and asphalt.
Once this process is complete, the petroleum extracted from crude oil becomes the raw material for various products that play a vital role in our daily lives. Petroleum is used as a fuel in its own right, but it also serves as the basis for the production of plastics, chemical products, and even pharmaceuticals. The petrochemical industry provides a wide range of materials used in products we use every day, such as electronic devices, clothing, automotive parts, and furniture. Only now, having finally fulfilled its purpose, does crude oil fade into the past, leaving behind its many “children.” Yet these “children” of crude oil demonstrate their capabilities in diverse fields, and among them, petroleum is considered an indispensable presence.
Shampoo, cosmetics, detergent. These are products we can easily buy at the store, but now we can understand the complex and lengthy process required to obtain the petroleum needed to make them. We might take them for granted because they are so readily available, but when we wash our hair in the morning, apply makeup, or do laundry, let’s take a moment to reflect on this long journey. For the petroleum that is still on its long journey somewhere right now!
