Oil remains a vital raw material, but bits and bytes have become one too.

石油仍然是一项至关重要的原材料，但比特和字节也已经成为了另一项。

youdao

But the oil price hike has also fueled a race to find new sources for chemical intermediates - compounds that are the raw material for many modern plastics, drugs and fuels.

但是，高涨的油价还激发了寻找新的化学中间品来源的竞争——这些化合物是许多现代材料的原料，比如塑料、药品以及燃料等等。

youdao

The other raw material for photosynthesis, carbon dioxide, will be supplied as the exhaust from industrial plants such as power stations, oil refineries and natural-gas processors.

进行光合作用的其他原料——二氧化碳，将由发电站、炼油厂、天然气处理厂之类的工厂排出的废气提供。

youdao

Unlike conventional plastics, their ultimate raw material is not oil, but maize.

ECONOMIST: Evanescent or evergreen?

For 3, once nylon had been discovered and proven useful, the race was on, given the supply of cheap oil (the main raw material) post WWII, from the Arabian Gulf.

FORBES: NextBigThingOlogy: The World After Facebook

What appears to be happening is that raw material producers like Russia and some of the oil producers in developing countries, are making a quiet but concerted effort to have a bigger share of the wealth which seems constantly to be radiating from the huge US economy.

BBC: Steel production