The primary bitumen uses of petroleum based bitumen is in road construction, where bitumen is applied as the adhesive or binder mixed with a collection of particles which are usually sand and small rocks to create asphalt concrete which is later applied to roads, driveways and highways.

These are just some of the areas of bitumen uses. The other chief area is for bituminous waterproofing of products such as pipes and even wiring. The other uses is also in roofing for sealing purposes.
Aside bitumen uses for waterproofing and road construction and sealing roofs bitumen uses are for boats and to coat structures such as buildings. Bitumen uses are also in technology, bitumen uses can be made to create plats to soften sounds in machineries such as supercomputers and dishwashers.

In the early days of which is another example of bitumen uses were in photography, bitumen was spread on pewter plates which were later exposed to light, resultant in black and white pictures being made.

While uses of bitumen are many, bitumen is derived naturally from petroleum or through distillation. Naturally occurring bitumen is adhesive and tar-like and needs to be heated or diluted before it can flow to apply to the many different bitumen uses. Bitumen in refined form is the excess product from the distillation of crude oil.