Abstract
Most aviation fuels are jet fuels originating from crude oil. Crude oil must be refined to be useful and jet fuel is only one of many products that can be derived from crude oil. Jet fuel is extracted from the middle distillates fraction and competes, for example, with the production of diesel.
Crude oil is a limited natural resource subject to depletion and several reports indicate that the world's crude oil production is close to the maximum level and that it will start to decrease after reaching this maximum. A post-Kyoto political agenda to reduce oil consumption will have the same effect on aviation fuel production as a natural decline in the crude oil production. On the other hand, it is predicted by the aviation industry that aviation traffic will keep on increasing.