text: Carbon is a vital component of all known living systems, and without it life as we know it could not exist. The major economic use of carbon is in the form of hydrocarbons, most notably the fossil fuels methane gas and crude oil (petroleum). Crude oil is used by the petrochemical industry to produce, amongst others, gasoline and kerosene, through a distillation process, in refineries. Crude oil forms the raw material for many synthetic substances, many of which are collectively called plastics.\n\nReally, visit Wikipedia...most of the info there is pretty sound.