this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
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Paracetamol is made all over the world. It's not complex and it's cheap.
The article discusses that this current issue is predominantly because paracetamol is usually derived from petrochemical feedstocks. It was originally discovered while testing coal tar analgesic analogues.
There are very recent developments to make it from pine tar so that it doesn't require petrochemicals, but that has not yet become a large part of the industry.
Thank you for opening this! Especially the pine tar link is interesting, since I know a guy who made, at home, their own acetylsalicylic acid from willow bark. Worked well! Interesting stuff.
How much oil would there be in it ?
Most paracetamol in the UK is imported from India. The ships now have to go around SA to avoid the conflict, this is what has driven the price up.
100% of paracetamol itself is manufactured from oil. The paracetamol pills themselves also have stabilizer (preservatives / dessican) and filler (just to bulk out the pills, else they'd be tiny) which can come from multiple sources.
The main chemical synthesis precursor is phenol, which commercial industry extracted previously from coal & coal tar, but in modern ages it's almost entirely from petroleum-derived feedstocks.