The barrel is the name of several units of volume: BBL often refers to an abbreviation for the British Basketball League. ... Traditional wooden barrels in Cutchogue Modern stainless steel beer barrels—also called casks or kegs—outside the Castle Rock microbrewery in Nottingham, England For other uses, see Barrel (disambiguation). ... The former Weights and Measures office in Middlesex, England. ... The volume of a solid object is the three-dimensional concept of how much space it occupies, often quantified numerically. ...

• Oil barrel: 42 U.S. gallons, 158.9873 litres,^[1] or 34.97231575 Imperial (UK) gallons.
• UK beer barrel: 36 UK gallons (163.7 litres).
• US beer barrel: 31½ U.S. gallons (117.3 litres), the result of tax law definitions.
• US non-beer liquid barrel: 31.5 U.S. gallons (119.2 litres), or half a hogshead.
• US dry barrel: 105 dry quarts (115.6 litres).

U.S. customary units, also known in the United States as English units[1] (but see English unit) or standard units, are units of measurement that are currently used in the USA, in some cases alongside units from SI (the International System of Units — the modern metric system). ... The litre or liter (see spelling differences) is a unit of volume. ... The Imperial units or the Imperial system is a collection of English units, first defined in the Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined (until 1959) and reduced. ... A hogshead is a large cask of liquid (less often, of a food commodity). ... For other uses, see Quart (disambiguation). ...

Oil barrel

This unit is used in North America for crude oil or other petroleum products. Elsewhere oil is more commonly measured in cubic metres (m³) and less commonly in tonnes (t).^{[citation needed]} Natural gas is measured differently. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Pumpjack pumping an oil well near Sarnia, Ontario Petroleum (from Greek petra – rock and elaion – oil or Latin oleum – oil ) or crude oil is a thick, dark brown or greenish liquid. ... Pumpjack pumping an oil well near Lubbock, Texas Ignacy Łukasiewicz - inventor of the refining of kerosene from crude oil. ... The cubic meter (symbol m³) is the SI derived unit of volume. ... A tonne or metric ton (symbol t), sometimes referred to as a metric tonne, is a measurement of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. ... For other uses, see Natural gas (disambiguation). ...

The measurement originated in the early Pennsylvania oil fields. In the early 1860s, when oil production began, there was no standard container for oil, so oil and petroleum products were stored and transported in barrels of all different shapes and sizes (barrels for beer, fish, molasses, turpentine, etc.). Both the 42-U.S.-gallon barrels (based on the old English wine measure, the tierce at 159 litres) and the 40-U.S.-gallon (151.4-litre) whiskey barrels were used. The 40-gallon barrel was the most common size early on, but companies often underfilled them. Capital Harrisburg Largest city Philadelphia Area  Ranked 33rd  - Total 46,055 sq mi (119,283 km²)  - Width 280 miles (455 km)  - Length 160 miles (255 km)  - % water 2. ... Drilling rig in a small oil field Near Sarnia, Ontario, 2001 An oil field is an area with an abundance of oil wells extracting petroleum (oil) from below ground. ... The gallon (abbreviation: gal) is a unit of volume. ... The tierce is an old English unit of wine casks, holding about 159 litres. ...

However, the Standard Oil Company shipped its oil in barrels that always contained exactly 42 U.S. gallons. Customers began to refuse to accept anything less and by 1866 the oil barrel was standardised at 42 U.S. gallons. This was 2 gallons per barrel more than the 40-gallon standard used by many other industries at the time.^{[citation needed]} The extra 2 gallons was to allow for evaporation and leaking during transport (most barrels were made of wood). Standard Oil (Esso) was a predominant integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. ...

The Standard Oil monopoly was broken up into 34 different companies in 1911. Oil has not been shipped in barrels for a very long time^[2] but the "blue barrel" is still the standard unit for measurement and pricing of oil in the U.S. today. A monopoly (from the Greek language monos, one + polein, to sell) is defined as a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a product or service, in other words a firm that has no competitors in its industry. ...

The abbreviations 1 Mbbl and 1 MMbbl are generally accepted to mean one thousand and one million barrels respectively. (In non-industry documentation Mbbl, "megabarrel", can sometimes stand for one million barrels.) In reference to petroleum, Mbbl is an abbreviation for Millions of barrels. It is the most commonly used unit in reference to large-scale oil production. ... MMbbl stands for million barrels, a unit often used for volumes of oil reserves. ... An SI prefix (also known as a metric prefix) is a name or associated symbol that precedes a unit of measure (or its symbol) to form a decimal multiple or submultiple. ...

The "b" may have been doubled originally to indicate the plural (1 bl, 2 bbl), or possibly it was doubled to eliminate any confusion with bl as a symbol for the bale (see above). Some sources claim that "bbl" originated as a symbol for "blue barrels" delivered by Standard Oil in its early days; this is almost certainly incorrect because there are citations for the symbol at least as early as the late 1700s, long before Standard Oil was founded.^[3] A paper bale is a quantity of sheets of paper, currently standardized as 5000 sheets. ...

References

See also

• 55 gallon drum
• United States customary units
• Imperial unit
• Petroleum pricing
• Barrels per day (BPD)

A typical drum A 44 gallon drum (known as a 55 gallon drum in the United States) is a cylindrical metal container (drum) with a nominal capacity of 44 imperial gallons, 55 U.S. gallons or 205 litre. ... U.S. customary units, also known in the United States as English units[1] (but see English unit) or standard units, are units of measurement that are currently used in the USA, in some cases alongside units from SI (the International System of Units — the modern metric system). ... The Imperial units or the Imperial system is a collection of English units, first defined in the Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined (until 1959) and reduced. ... Pumpjack pumping an oil well near Lubbock, Texas Ignacy Łukasiewicz - inventor of the refining of kerosene from crude oil. ... Barrels per day (abbreviated bpd or b/d) is a measurement used to describe the amount of crude oil produced or consumed by an entity in one day. ...

External links

• Crude Oil and Oil Products Conversions
• Oil Industry Unit Conversions