In addition to selling a range of car accessories, many service stations sell convenience food and offer eating facilities. Kerosene is used to fuel the world's commercial airlines. Since aircraft fly more than 900 billion miles around the world on passenger routes every year, that represents a sizeable market. In many developing countries, kerosene is widely used for lighting and heating as an alternative to scarce natural resources such as firewood. Diesel is used in the diesel engines of lorries, buses, vans, trains, and ships and also finds application in industry and in power generation.
Fuel oil is used for heating, power generation and in ships driven by steam turbines.
The heaviest residue, asphalt is widely used for road surfacing and for waterproofing dams, tunnels, and reservoirs. Residues also provide the feedstocks for base oils used in the manufacture of lubricants. The base oils are transported in bulk to a lubricants blending plant where they are mixed with certain chemicals according to a specific formulation. All machines from a small refrigerator to a huge car assembly plant, need lubrication. The market is therefore huge but also very complex, requiring 'tailor-made' products for each application.