The plastics industry manufactures polymeric materials—commonly called plastics—and provides important plastics services to a variety of industries, including packaging, construction, electronics, aerospace, manufacturing, and transportation. It is part of the chemical industry. Furthermore, since mineral oil is the main constituent of plastics, it is part of the petrochemical industry. In addition to plastics production, plastics engineering is an important part of the industrial sector. The latter field is dominated by engineering plastic as a raw material due to its better mechanical and thermal properties than the more widely used commodity plastics.