The barrel is the name of several units of volume:

• Oil barrel: 42 US gallons, 158. A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container traditionally made of Wood Staves and bound with Iron Hoops The The volume of any solid plasma vacuum or theoretical object is how much three- Dimensional space it occupies often quantified numerically US customary units, also known in the United States as English units or Imperial units (in reference to the British Empire) (but see English A gallon is a measure of Volume. It is in current use in the United States and still has limited use in many other English-speaking countries 9873 litres,^[1] or 34. The litre or liter (see spelling differences) is a unit of Volume. 9723 Imperial (UK) gallons. Imperial units or the Imperial system is a collection of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824
• UK beer barrel: 36 UK gallons (163. 7 litres).
• US beer barrel: 31 US gallons (117. 3 litres), the result of tax law definitions.
• US non-beer liquid barrel: 31½ US gallons (119. 2 litres), or half a hogshead. A hogshead is a large cask of liquid (less often of a food commodity)
• US dry barrel: 105 dry quarts (115. The quart is an imperial and US customary unit of Volume equal to a quarter of a Gallon. 6 litres).
• Somali water barrel: 200 litres - used in Horn of Africa to measure water and diesel.

Oil barrel

Modern day steel drum

The standard oil barrel is used in the United States as a measure of crude oil and other petroleum products. Petroleum ( L petroleum, from Greek πετρέλαιον, lit Petroleum ( L petroleum, from Greek πετρέλαιον, lit Elsewhere, oil is more commonly measured in cubic metres (m³) or in tonnes (t), with tonnes often being used by companies that ship most of their oil by sea. CM3 redirects here If you were looking for the 3rd game in the Cooking Mama series abbreviated as CM3 see here. This article is about the tonne or metric ton For other tons see Ton. . International companies listed on American stock exchanges tend to convert their oil production volumes to barrels for global reporting purposes, and those listed on European exchanges tend to convert their production to tonnes.

The wooden oil barrel of the late 1800s is different from the modern day 55-gallon steel drum (known as the 44-gallon drum in Britain and the 200-litre drum in Australia). The 42-US gallon oil barrel is a unit of measure, and is no longer used to transport crude oil - most petroleum is moved in pipelines or oil tankers. History The technology of oil transportation has evolved alongside the oil industry

The 42 US gallon size of barrel as a unit of measure is largely confined to the American oil industry, since other sizes of barrel were used by other industries in the United States, and nearly all other countries use the metric system. US customary units, also known in the United States as English units or Imperial units (in reference to the British Empire) (but see English The metric system is a decimalised system of measurement. It exists in several variations with different choices of base units, though the choice of base units does Many smaller or poorer countries that do not have the technical expertise to develop their own domestic oil industry standards use the American oil barrel for the sake of convenience. It is important to note that not all contents of a barrel of oil may be used for purposes like gasoline. Rather, it must be refined first which leads to fewer gallons of oil than you started with.

The measurement originated in the early Pennsylvania oil fields. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ( often colloquially referred to as PA (its abbreviation by natives and Northeasterners is a state located in the Northeastern An oil field is a region with an abundance of Oil wells extracting Petroleum (crude oil from below ground 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 different shapes and sizes for beer, fish, molasses, turpentine, etc. Both the 42-US gallon barrels (based on the old English wine measure, the tierce (159 litres) and the 40-U. A gallon is a measure of Volume. It is in current use in the United States and still has limited use in many other English-speaking countries The tierce is an old English unit of Wine casks holding about 159 litres. S. -gallon (151. 4-litre) whiskey barrels were used. 45-gallon barrels were also in common use. The 40-gallon whiskey barrel was the most common size used by early oil producers, since they were readily available at the time. ^[2]

The origins of the 42-gallon oil barrel are obscure, but some historical documents indicate that around 1866 early oil producers in Pennsylvania came to the conclusion that shipping oil in a variety of different containers was causing buyer distrust. They decided they needed a standard unit of measure to convince buyers that they were getting a fair volume for their money. They agreed to base this measure on the more-or-less standard 40-gallon whiskey barrel, but added an additional two gallons to ensure that any measurement errors would always be in the buyer's favor as an additional way of assuring buyer confidence (The same principle as behind the baker's dozen and some other long units of measure. A baker's dozen, also known as a long dozen and a "long measure" is 13, one more than a proper Dozen. ) By 1872 the standard oil barrel was firmly established as 42 US gallons. ^[3]

The abbreviations 1 Mbbl and 1 MMbbl have historically meant one thousand and one million barrels respectively. MMbbl stands for million barrels, a unit often used for volumes of Oil reserves. They are derived from the Latin "mille" meaning "thousand" rather than the Greek "mega". However, this can cause confusion with the SI abbreviation for Mega- (and in non-industry documentation Mbbl, "megabarrel", can sometimes stand for one million barrels). Mega- (symbol M) is an SI prefix in the SI system of units denoting a factor of 106, 1000000 (one Million 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

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. Various measures of Paper quantity have been and are in use; Writing paper measurements 25 sheets = 1 quire 500 sheets = 20 quires = 1 ream 1000 sheets = Some sources claim that "bbl" originated as a symbol for "blue barrels" delivered by Standard Oil in its early days; this is probably incorrect because there are citations for the symbol at least as early as the late 1700s, long before Standard Oil was founded. ^[4]

See also

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

References

External links

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