Crude Oil

Crude oil is the great source, matured over hundreds of millions of years as the remains of plankton and algae were buried deep underground and subjected to heat and pressure. It holds within it thousands of hydrocarbon species — paraffins, naphthenes, aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes — together with sulphur, nitrogen, oxygen, and trace metals. Black, viscous, and unfathomable, it divides through distillation into naphtha, kerosene, gas oil, and residue, becoming the origin of every lineage in petrochemistry. A silent, unshakable elder: the beginning of all things.