Short answers, pulled from the story.
Petroleum is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. This substance is formed over billions of years from the anaerobic decay of organic materials from buried prehistoric organisms, particularly planktons and algae.
Petroleum has been used since ancient times, with bitumen mentioned more than 4,300 years ago when the Sumerians used it to make boats. The use of petroleum in ancient China dates back more than 2,000 years, with the I Ching citing that oil was first discovered, extracted, and used in China in the 1st century BCE.
Ignacy Łukasiewicz hand-dug the first intentional well for commercial oil extraction in Bóbrka, Poland, in 1853 to supply fuel for lighting. Romania was the first country in the world to have its annual crude oil output officially recorded in international statistics, with 275 tonnes for 1857.
The world consumes about 97.26 million barrels of oil each day, a figure that underscores its dominance in the global economy and daily life. Approximately 80 percent of the world's readily accessible reserves are located in the Middle East, with 62.5 percent coming from the Arab five: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Qatar, and Kuwait.
Crude oil consists of a variety of liquid, gaseous, and solid components, including lighter hydrocarbons such as methane, ethane, propane and butane. The bulk of the liquid and solids are largely heavier organic compounds, often hydrocarbons, while the other organic compounds contain nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur, and traces of metals such as iron, nickel, copper and vanadium.
The peak of oil discoveries was in 1965, and oil production per year has surpassed oil discoveries every year since 1980. In 2020, according to BP's Energy Outlook 2020, peak oil had been reached, due to the changing energy landscape coupled with the economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic.