We have seen many economic changes over the course of the past year. Global recession and a need for conservation have been by-words. The price of oil has fluctuated dramatically and finally settled in the mid $70’s per/barrel.

Call for an Oil Change

Change the oil industry and all our problems will be solved was the battle cry across the nation and in government. We need new renewable, national energy alternatives to replace the high price of foreign oil.

Each call for change is a good thing. However, the call for change of drilling and pumping and processing crude all doesn’t always take into account all the other products that are created from our use of petroleum. We need to understand that oil based products are entrenched in the core of our society. Products like: golf balls, make-up,deoderant, lipstick, DVD’s, HDTV’s, even toilet seats, and thousands of other products including artificial limbs.

Less than half of every barrel of oil is used to create gasoline. There are over 6000 items made with petroleum, how many of them can you name? To see a list of 144 products read: A partial list of products made from Petroleum.

How the Recession has Affected the Oil Industry

There are many different ways the oil industry has been hit by the recession, and many of them one might not readily recognize. Did you know how many consumer products are actually manufactured from oil based products? Take tooth paste, soaps, lipstick, sports articles and many textile fabrics, just to mention a few. So if fewer sports articles are sold, the demand for production will diminish, which in turn affects how many people are employed both in production and retail. While a retail sales clerk at a sports store may not seem directly impacted by the recession in the oil industry, he in fact may just have lost his job because of it.

As in any recession, not any one facet can be seem independently from another. How, one might ask, can the loss of sales in the winter sport industry possibly have negative consequences for the oil industry? Think about it: Skis are made from oil based raw material. Fewer skis are purchased, because not as many people can afford their winter vacation. Not only are those at the manufacturing plant affected, but so are, once again, the sales clerk in the sport article industry; and really anybody to do with winter sports: the hotel concierge, the snow plow driver, the laundry service providing clean linen for hotel guests. Fewer customers all around equate to reduced purchasing power all the way around, coupled with unemployment mixes into an almost disastrous cocktail to deepen the recession.

Petroleum products changed our society

Over the past one hundred and fifty years oil based products have become en-grained in every aspect of our society. It took time and tremendous advances in technology to get to that point, and it will take time and technology to make the paradigm shift. There are no quick fixes to reduce our dependence on oil. So in our call for change, we must look at all the other ways and products that will need to be changed as well. We have changed the way we purchase and the amount of products we purchase due to the recession, now we need to change the way we look at the oil industry in order to make it work. They are all intertwined!

Until that day, one company is striving to work within the oil industry and help keep costs of maintenance and repair down so that the cost of oil production will also remain lower - “Miller Oil Field Equipment, Supply & Repair”. Their 45,000 sq.ft warehouse and over 3000 products keep the oil drilling equipment running smoothly and efficiently, thus keeping costs to a minimum. And that is good news for all consumers.

Resources: If you would like to know more about the oil field industry, you can read more articles by Jaron Miller of Miller Oil Equipment & Repair. They have thousands of products available to service you.