What is synthetic

This article depicts the debate between Mobil and Castrol....about the definition of fully synthetic oil.

Cliffnotes:
Mobil's definition....oil made our of 100 artificial sources with a predermined molecular structure

Castrol's definition....oil made out of regular dino oil (with recombined molecular structure) + plus other artificial components


http://www.1st-in-synthetics.com/articles60.htm

What is your opinion on this?

it sounds like castrol's 'fully synthetic' is more of a blend of natural oil with a 'fully-synthetic' mixture. wereas mobil uses a completely synthetic makeup

I think synthetic oil is oil that has no natural base ingredients, like dino oil.

personally i agree with mobil's stand....fully synthetic should only be made out of 100% synthetic materials

A synthetic oil shouldn't be made from refined petroleum but it can be made of refined petroleum products. If we take an synthetic oil as an example, lets say polyalphaolefin; PAO can be made from ethylene and ethylene can be derived from crude oil.