Creosote from both oil shale and petroleum, and are known as oil-tar creosote when derived from oil tar, and as water-gas-tar creosote when derived from the tar of water gas. Creosote also has been made from pre-coal formations such as lignite, yielding lignite-tar creosote, and peat, yielding peat-tar creosote. The term creosote has a broad range of definitions depending on the origin of the coal tar oil and end use of the material. With respect to wood preservatives, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers the term creosote to mean a pesticide for use as a wood preservative meeting the
Coal oil to petroleum as a feedstock. Refined hydrocarbons of the alkane series with 10 to 16 carbon atoms are the same thing whether taken from coal or petroleum. The term was in use by the late 18th century for oil produced as a byproduct of the production of coal gas and coal tar. In the early 19th century it was discovered that coal oil distilled from cannel coal could be used in lamps as an illuminant, although the early coal oil burned with a smokey flame, so that it was used only for outdoor lamps; cleaner-burning whale oil was used in