Oil

Basic
Oil (crude oil) is a naturally occurring substance found in rock formations in the earth ... is a hydrocarbon that is highly flammable and as such can be burned to create energy.
OPEC

Oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons and paraffins in some areas, and aromatics and cyclo-paraffins in other areas. Thought to have been formed from decomposition of animal and vegetable life under heat and pressure during geologic periods, it occurs usually in deep rock strata but sometimes near to the surface.
Business Dictionary

Commodification
Burning crude oil itself is of limited use. To extract the maximum value from crude, it first needs to be refined into petroleum products. The best-known of these is gasoline, or petrol. However, there are many other products that can be obtained when a barrel of crude oil is refined. These include liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), naphtha, kerosene, gasoil [sic] and fuel oil.

Other useful products which are not fuels can also be manufactured by refining crude oil, such as lubricants and asphalt (used in paving roads). A range of sub-items like perfumes and insecticides are also ultimately derived from crude oil.
OPEC

Origin
Oil or petroleum products have been used by man since ancient times. However, as man followed a simple life style, the uses of oil too were limited to simple things. Asphalt was used over 4000 years ago for construction of walls and towers in the city of Babylon. The Persians are thought to have used oil in medicines as well as for lighting purposes. It was also used as a waterproofing material for ships.
Buzzle.com

Popular Use
The first commercial oil well was struck in Pennsylvania in 1859, igniting an oil rush that quickly spread to Texas and California. At the time, oil in the form of kerosene was used as fuel for lamps. Spurred by the automobile revolution at the beginning of the new century the nascent industry quickly expanded around the world. By the 1950s, most of the big fields of the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia's giants, had been discovered.

In the 1960s new governments formed after the independence movement that swept through Africa and the Middle East began demanding a bigger share of the natural resources lying under their country. These demands led to the creation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Baghdad, in 1960.
New York Times

The Energy Crisis
In the 1970s, the most significant energy crisis started when Arab oil producers decided  to boycott America and punish the West in response to support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war against Egypt.
Guardian

One of the many results of the embargo was higher oil prices all throughout the western world, particularly on the United States of America. Prices of gasoline quadrupled, rising from just 25 cents to over a dollar in just a few months.
Recession.org

In addition to causing major problems in the lives of consumers, the energy crisis was a huge blow to the American automotive industry and would now be outpaced by Japanese manufacturers producing smaller and more fuel-efficient models. Though the embargo was not enforced uniformly in Europe, the price hikes led to an energy crisis of even greater proportions than in the United States.

Countries such as Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Denmark placed limitations on driving, boating and flying, while the British prime minister urged his countrymen only to heat one room in their homes during the winter. The oil embargo was lifted in March 1974, but oil prices remained high, and the effects of the energy crisis lingered throughout the decade.
History.com

Primary
Oil can be put to a variety of uses, with transportation accounting for a growing share of the oil consumed. While the transport sector consumed 42% of the oil in in 1973 this share climbed to 61.2% in 2007. The growing level of global motorization is a core component behind this relative growth, particularly the growth of international trade.

Variations
Gaseous fuels such as propane, stored and shipped in liquid form under pressure in specialized railcars to distributors. Liquid fuels blending (producing automotive and aviation grades of gasoline, kerosene, various aviation turbine fuels, and diesel fuels, adding dyes, detergents, antiknock additives, oxygenates, and anti-fungal compounds as required).  Shipped by barge, rail, and tanker ship.

May be shipped regionally in dedicated pipelines to point consumers, particularly aviation jet fuel to major airports, or piped to distributors in multi-product pipelines using product separators called pipeline inspection gauges ("pigs"). Lubricants (produces light machine oils, motor oils, and greases, adding viscosity stabilizers as required), usually shipped in bulk to an offsite packaging plant.

Wax, used in the packaging of frozen foods among others. May be shipped in bulk to a site to prepare as packaged blocks. Sulphuric acid finishing and shipping. This is a useful industrial material, usually prepared and shipped as the acid precursor oleum, a by-product of sulphur removal from fuels.
Welcome to Organic Chemistry with Joe Sloop

Step 1 - Drilling
Today, almost all present-day wells are bored by rotary drilling equipment, which works like a corkscrew or carpenter's drill. In rotary drilling, a large, heavy bit is attached to a length of hollow drill pipe. As the well gets deeper, additional sections of pipe are connected at the top of the hole. The taller the derrick, the longer the sections of drill pipe that can be strung together. Although early derricks were made of wood, modern derricks are constructed of high-strength steel.
ScienceClarified

Step 2 - Refining
A petroleum refinery is an installation that manufactures finished petroleum products from crude oil, unfinished oils, natural gas liquids, other hydrocarbons, and alcohol. Refined petroleum products include, but are not limited to, gasolines, kerosene, distillate fuel oils, liquefied petroleum gas, asphalt, lubricating oils, diesel fuels, and residual fuels.

Step 3 - Transportation
Production areas are often far removed from the areas where the oil and gas is needed. This is why, for decades, large quantities of hydrocarbons have been transported all over the world.

Oil Transportation by Sea
Huge quantities of oil are transported by ship between point of production, point of refining and point of consumption. In 2008, the equivalent of 54 million barrels, i.e. about 7.2 million tons of oil, were transported worldwide by sea, daily. 2.6 billion tons of oil were transported by sea in 2008 alone, compared to 500 million in 1960 and 100 million in 1935. Thus in order to meet constantly growing demand, oil freight is also constantly growing in crude oil but also fuel and basic petrochemicals products. In 2008, it accounted for a third of total sea trade worldwide.

Hydrocarbon Transportation over Land
Oil is transported via pipelines that are several thousand kilometers long. Pipelines are large pipes through which tens of millions of tons of oil are transported every year. The longest pipeline in the world is the Druzhba pipeline (5,327 km), which passes through eight countries; Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Step 4 - Distribution
Every day, each of us uses petroleum products to meet our domestic needs, for example to drive a car or motorbike. Similarly, the industry, agriculture and transport sectors and public authorities and services have substantial oil and gas requirements.

So, oil companies have to deliver the right product at the right time, to the right location and at the best price, under optimum safety and security conditions to protect the environment. These are the aims of oil logistics, which is based on the existence of refineries, storage depots and a distribution network that delivers petroleum products to the consumer.
Planete Energies

Oil Drilling
Significant oil reserves exist under the sea floor in numerous areas globally. However, the process through which such resources are utilised, i.e. prospecting, drilling and transporting, can have seriously negative consequences for marine areas and disturb marine species.
WWF

Environment
Burning fossil fuels (such as oil) is responsible for environmental issues that are high on the political agenda these days. Examples are greenhouse gas accumulation, acidification, air pollution, water pollution, damage to land surface and ground-level ozone.

Moreover, Fossil fuels are non-renewable energy sources since they need millions of years to form and its reserves are being depleted much faster than new ones are being formed. Fossil fuels when burning release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and carbon dioxide is very harmful greenhouse gas, mainly responsible for the global warming problem.
Interesting Energy Facts

Social
Many of the countries where oil can be found are politically unstable – around 70% of the world’s oil reserves are believed to be located in the Middle East. Developed nations with an oil-dependency have a vested interest in such countries and may seek to influence the politics of such countries to their own advantage.
Fossil Fuel Resources

Peak Oil
The notion that oil production will "peak" at some point in the near future, estimates as to when vary significantly, has become increasingly pervasive in recent times. This essentially refers to a point in time where oil production can no longer satisfy demand if new reserves are not discovered. This will ultimately mean production cannot increase and will slowly decline. The possibility of this occurring within the next 25 years is recognized by even the most optimistic forecasts.
SAIC

Versatility
Not just petrol is derived from oil but with over 4,000 other products extracted from it making it one of the most versatile resources.
OPEC

Geothermal
Generally oil companies are receptive to the idea of turning a liability into an asset and expanding the economic potential of their oil wells. And why not, since in the past, waste-water from oilfield production processes was viewed as a nuisance by-product that needed to be disposed of.

But new research has shown that much of the 25 billion barrels of this geothermally heated “waste-water” produced at oil wells each year in the U.S. is hot enough to produce electricity. It is estimated that many of the wells might have clean energy capacities of up to 1 MW.
Renewableenergyworld.com

Oil Production by Country
(in thousands of barrels per day, 2009)
1. Russian Federation - 10,223 
2. Saudi Arabia - 9,538 
3. United States - 7,347 
4. Iran - 4,246 

Oil Consumption by Country
(in quantity consumed per day, in thousands of barrels, 2009)
1. United States - 18,462
2. China - 8,522 
3. Japan - 4,357 
4. India - 3,259 
5. Saudi Arabia - 2,661 
 
Oil Reserves by Country
(reserves in billions of barrels, 2009)
1. Saudi Arabia - 263.8  
2. Venezuela - 172.3  
3. Iran - 139.4  
4. Iraq - 117.8  
5. Kuwait - 103.5
Europe's Energy Portal