My top 5 oil industry facts: 1) Oil is important. Shockingly, sometimes horrifically important. The world economy has been developing with oil as its lifeblood for over a hundred years. Oil is directly responsible for about 2.5% of world GDP [1], but accounts for 1/3rd of humanity's primary energy supply (>5 terawatts out of 15 terawatts total) [2]. It's over half if you include natural gas. World Energy Consumption by Source, in Terawatts World energy consumption Oil/gas powers 100% of all transportation, within a few significant figures of rounding error. Transportation, in turn, directly accounted for 1/6th of world GDP...