Talk:Barrel (unit)

It has been suggested that bbl be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

I don't think there's anything to discuss, by saying "The barrel (abbreviated bbl)", it's obvious it's the same thing. --Leladax 08:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

unless "how" it's what should be discussed --Leladax 08:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

No, there's no discussion yet. Let them be merged. Jimp 06:41, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Though "How?"'s a good question seeing as they don't exactly agree with eachother. Jimp 07:41, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Mbbl

Moved from Talk:bbl

There's some confusion over whether 1Mbbl means one million barrels or one thousand barrels. The usual usage seems to be 1 million. Try Google. Yes, it's an incorrect use of a metric prefix. 1MMbbl is also used for one million barrels. But in fact, both abbreviations are rarely used.

The Standard Oil blue barrel may be an urban legend, but the US Department of Energy believes it. See http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/non-renewable/bluebarrel.html

So does the Alberta government. See http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/1960.asp

Removed text about "splashing" explaination for barrel size. Used some text from DOE Kid's Page: http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/non-renewable/bluebarrel.html

--Nagle 05:03, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

That should be 1 Mbbl.

It's not an incorrect use of a metric prefix. There's no violation of any rules to use megabarrels or kilofeet or microinches or whatever—but then, it probably isn't even a prefix in the first place. Many probably don't even read that M as standing for mega- but rather for million, just as in the old days we had "BeV" for billion electron volts and "MeV" for million electron volts.

Of course, that Roman numerals M for 1000, and MM for 1,000,000 (yes, sometimes seen in MMbbl—no, make that not just sometimes but far too often, search for mmbbl oil in any search engine). Gene Nygaard 06:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

21:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)21:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)21:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)70.144.103.150 The use of M as a prefix for Mega or million is standard metric use. However the medical industry uses capital M to mean milli as in Mg = milligram on medications! I would hate to have to swallow a metric Mg (meaning Megagram) pill? That certaintly could cause a LARGE mistake, such as the British - Metric system mistake that caused a Mars probe to crash a few years ago! When is the USA going to drop the arcaic British system with all its odd and irratonal units and fully adopt the metric system? --70.144.103.150 21:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Aeh

Where do the major oil-trading exchanges define the capacity of a barrel?

Does the NYMEX (or any other exchange) define exactly what the capacity is of a barrel of crude oil? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.159.219.48 (talk) 01:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

They don't. In the US, trade is regulated by the Department of Commerce. They operate NIST who, on behalf of the Secretary of Commerce, are empowered to regulate the units of trade. Their definition for the barrel (petroleum) is 42 US gallons or exactly 158.9873 litres. See Barrel (unit). LeadSongDog (talk) 16:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

According to page C17 of this NIST document:

http://ts.nist.gov/WeightsAndMeasures/Publications/upload/h4402_appenc.pdf

"by custom, 42 gallons comprise a barrel of crude oil or petroleum products for statistical purposes, and this equivalent is recognized "for liquids" by four States."

Based on the above, it should be noted that (a) the definition of 42 gallons is "by custom" - not "by law", and (b) the definition of 42 gallons is "for statistical purposes" and does not mention "for use in trade or commerce".

This NIST document (page 10) also states that a barrel of oil is 42 gallons (approx. 159 liters):

http://ts.nist.gov/WeightsAndMeasures/Metric/upload/fs376-b.pdf

NYMEX does define the capacity of a barrel in terms of gallons according to this:

http://www.nymex.com/CL_spec.aspx

Here we see that the trading unit (for Light Sweet Crude Oil) is specified as "1,000 barrels (42,000 gallons)". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.49.240.201 (talk) 14:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion: The capacity of a barrel of tradable crude oil is 42 gallons (159 liters) as dictated by custom or convention and not necessarily by statute or legislation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.49.240.201 (talk) 14:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

NYMEX is just specifying which barrel they are using (i.e. not fermented liquor barrels). The NIST document Federal Standard 376B referenced above appears to have defined the U.S. oil barrel as 158.9873 liters, exactly, as a consequence of setting metric standards. The American Petroleum Institute has written a foot-long shelf of documents (the Manual of Petroleum Measurement Standards or MPSM) specifying in great detail how to measure oil, and the U.S. federal and state governments have passed laws requiring U.S. oil companies to follow it. Other countries have other standards, and if you were selling oil on their markets you'd have to follow them, but that's not relevant here. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 23:57, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Wait - is it 42 gallons or is it exactly 158.9873 litres? Because, 42 gallons is exactly 158.987294928 litres. --Random832 (contribs) 18:57, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Answered my own question - it's not exact; exact conversions in that document are in boldface and 158.9873 is not. --Random832 (contribs) 18:59, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

You can't measure crude oil that accurately in any case. They store it in tanks which may range from -40°C to +40°C, it (and the tanks) expand and contract with temperature changes, the changes are nonlinear depending on chemical composition, the tanks are not perfectly cylindrical and bulge when you put oil in them, and sales quality oil may contain up to 0.5% sand and water. They can correct the readings for all this stuff, but it's still not a perfect measurement. Some operations think they are doing well if the meters balance within +/-5% of each other. Others manage +/-1%. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 06:35, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

When we convert a billion barrels to litres in a spreadsheet, nobody expects to get an approximate answer, however fictional the apparent accuracy may be. We expect to be able to stipulate any rounding we require after the calculation is made. Also, unecessary rounding leading to inaccuracies in intermediate results can introduce errors in final results of a size that can be measured in the real world. It is perverse to use an approximate factor in calculations when an accurate one is available. For all these reasons, quoting the full 12 digits of the conversion factor is correct.HighsideUK (talk) 17:14, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

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Whiskey?

Does anyone know source tells that the 40-gallon barrel was for containing whiskey? --Octra Bond (talk) 02:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Oil drum photo

If a barrel of crude oil is 42 gallons, why is it being illustrated with a photo of a 55-gallon oil drum? This seems like a contradiction (or, at best, confusing). Dcwaterboy (talk) 18:41, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Good question. however, the text does point out the distinction between the non-existent 42-US gallon oil barrel and the ubiquitous 55-US gallon drum, and imho the article is more instructive with the captioned photo. Irv (talk) 21:00, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

It's a picture of a drum while the article is about barrels.
The drum picture, especially with the caption, while truthful can easily lead to confusion. Somehow I still thought a barrel was 55gal. So, on reading the article, I assumed a mistake had been made in the text. After checking with other sources I'm convinced that, in the US, when referring to oil a barrel is indeed 42 US gallons... just as the article states. Drums are still 55 US gallons.
A quick search for a Creative Commons licensed picture did not result in any good choices. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bluebbl.gif may be a 42gal barrel, but it is unclear.
Hmmmm... the picture used in the article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drum.jpg , does not seem to be sourced.
Perhaps, for now, just changing the caption to something more generic would alleviate the confusion.
Wow.. guess I'm a scaredy-cat editor.. I should just make the change. .done.

(2 minutes later..) I think it's clearer now, but am worried about Casey56's comment about the 42 gallon barrel not existing. Is it just a unit of measure, not an actual container? I have no idea.

Gatohaus (talk) 14:22, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Frankly, without any frame of reference in the image, I'd never be able to tell the difference between a 55-gallon drum and a 42-gallon barrel, especially since the caption itself says the two are "visually similar". A caption that explicitly states "this is not actually what the article is about" doesn't seem like it adds a lot of value to the article, and if they are truly visually similar, then the caption isn't really necessary. My 2¢. HalJor (talk) 22:14, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm still totally confused. What is leaking into the Gulf? 42 or 55 or what?

I suggest removing the current image, as it will just confuse visitors.

I just posted here looking for an image. If anyone in this thread works in the biz, please take a snapshot. Considering the current spill, I think the world would like a picture with a frame of reference. Traffic to this article has doubled since the spill, which is likely people trying to find out what a barrel is. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:01, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

It is confusing to readers to include an image of a 55 gallon drum when what is being talked about is a 42 gallon oil barrel. Oil was originally shipped in 42 gallon barrels when the oil industry was young, but oil companies have not used physical barrels to ship crude oil for probably most of the last century. They use pipelines, tanker trucks, and ships. It's a unit of measure, not a physical barrel. The name (and actually the unit of measure) is archaic. Maybe someone can find a picture in a museum. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Ha ha. Okay. But why is its use as a unit of measurement archaic? In any case, the image should be removed along with the mind-boggling caption. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Glad that picture was removed, agree that a museum picture of a real 42-gallon barrel would be appropriate. Kkken (talk) 12:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

It has been proposed that Barrel per day be merged to here, Barrel (unit).  --Lambiam 23:47, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it seems like a reasonable merger. A lot of the information is duplicated in both articles. I say go ahead.TheFreeloader (talk) 07:12, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Merge. Lightmouse (talk) 11:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Lightmouse (talk) 14:22, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Goofy arithmetic in cited reference

Wnt added some barrel/gallon/ton(ne) info on July 29, acknowledging in his Edit Summary that the Web-page source [Marine Oil Pollution Information Gateway] was questionable. It looks like a poorly maintained, organized, and proofread Website of an advocacy arm distantly related to the U.N. Are they an acceptably reliable reference? Not to me, and their bad arithmetic reinforces my bias.

First, they say "tonne" everywhere except in the cited paragraph, where they inexplicably switch to "ton"---which anyone can be forgiven for assuming must therefore mean a 2,000-lb ton, not the 1,000 kg tonne (1.1 tons). In that paragraph, they say:
"1 barrel = 42 American gallons or 35 British imperial gallons = 159 litres. In round figures: 7–9 barrels = 1 ton of oil, depending on the type of oil. Or: 294 American gallons = 1 ton of oil (ranging from 256 American gallons per ton of heavy distillate to 333 American gallons per ton of gasoline, with crude oil at 272 American gallons per ton)."

The arithmetic only works if either (a) those "round figures" should be 6-8 barrels per ton, not 7-9, or (b) 7–9 is correct, but they should have stuck with "tonne". Since the source did neither, I changed (a) in this WP article. Perhaps someone can find a more authoritative, less self-contradictory source. Kkken (talk) 13:21, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there some mix-up between tons and tonnes here? They are slightly, but significantly, different. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.147.1.91 (talk • contribs) 06:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC) [moved from an HTML comment following the paragraph by RossPatterson (talk) 10:51, 28 March 2012 (UTC)]

Yes, there is a mix-up between tons and tonnes. I think they should all be tonnes. Some people talk about "metrics tons" which then gets abbreviated to "tons", which is technically incorrect. 1 ton = 907kg, 1 tonne = 1000kg. According to EIA there are 308 US gallons (7.33 barrels) of crude oil per tonne and 358 US gallons (8.53 barrels) of gasoline per tonne ( http://www.eia.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=about_energy_conversion_calculator-basics ). Different crude oils have different consistencies, so there is no single answer to this conversion. Iran Heavy is denser than Louisiana Light Sweet, but they are both crude oils. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.115.111.731 (talk • contribs) 03:11, 28 March 2012‎ (UTC) [moved from an HTML comment following the paragraph by RossPatterson (talk) 10:51, 28 March 2012 (UTC)]

As if that weren't bad enough, there's also the long ton of 2240 lb. Jimp 13:14, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Need a photo

I think this article could really use a photo. Here are some possibilities. [1][2][3]. I would add one myself but I don't know how. Kendall-K1 (talk) 02:54, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

History of oil barrels

The article is a little deceptive (or at least insufficiently precise) when it indicates that the measurement of oil in barrels dates to the Pa oil fields in the 1860s. I see references to bbls of whale oil as far back as the 1780s. In fact, barrels were frequently used as a unit for all kinds of commodities, so perhaps a history section that deals with more than just oil is needed. Agricolae (talk) 01:20, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree. It is not my field, but if I remember I'll see whather I can find material on the subject. JonRichfield (talk) 14:23, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Agree too. Also, the 159 l barrel for petroleum storage was also used in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn (Alsace, France). It is mentioned on the German and French wikipedia pages but not here Gregopim (talk) 10:50, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I found a couple of sources for the origin of the oil barrel, one of which quoted the text of the 1866 official declaration by the Pennsylvania oil producers, so I incorporated them into the article. In reality, it was equal to the old English wine tierce, which is interesting from an historical perspective. The wine tierce is ancient history, but the oil barrel lives on. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 00:30, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Delusions of precision

I think it is highly unencyclopaedic, in fact juvenile, to use unreasonable or unrealistic precision in conversions. It reflects badly on the quality of WP articles. For example: "...which is equivalent to 158.987294928 liters exactly or approximately 34.9723 imperial gallons". I am not fussy about the details, but I intend to convert that to "which is about 159 litres or 35 imperial gallons". If we were speaking of laboratory precision, a percentage error of ppm might make sense, but in gross units like "barrels" in commercial and engineering practice, a large fraction of one percent or even several percent is more realistic and sensible. I wonder whether we shouldn't enquire about principles, policy and practice in WP in general concerning this point. JonRichfield (talk) 14:23, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

These are not measurements but definitions. Jimp 13:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The unit conversion from oil barrels to cubic metres is exact, since the oil barrel is defined in terms of the US gallon, the US gallon is defined in terms of the inch, and the inch is defined in terms of the metre. However that is academic since you can't measure oil that precisely, and besides there is a difference in measurement temperature bases: 60 °F (15.56 °C) in Imperial and 15 °C (59.00 °F) in metric. Oil expands and contracts with temperature at varying rates depending on composition. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 00:30, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

The Alberta Department of Energy uses 1 barrel = 0.158910 cubic metres, BUT that includes an allowance for the temperature base change between measurement systems and so is not the same as the exact volume definition of 0.158987294928. It also would vary a bit depending on oil density.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 09:38, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Tierce vs barrel

The oil barrel is based on the wine tierce, which is 1/6 tun, but the other barrels are based on the wine barrel, which is 1/8 tun. That's why the oil barrel is bigger than other barrels. See English wine cask units. If I had a good source I would add this information to the article. Kendall-K1 (talk) 22:23, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I found a couple of good sources for the information and added them to the article.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 09:54, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

And Canada

In a couple of places the article said, "United States and Canada", which implies that Canada uses the US oil barrel in the same way the United States does, which is not really correct. Canada is on the metric system, and Canadian oil companies measure oil in cubic metres and convert to US oil barrels on export and for US shareholders and press, so I added text to reflect that complication.

The oil barrel was always a problem for the Canadian oil industry since it is defined in terms of the US gallon, and the US gallon is not now and never was a legal unit of measure in Canada. There was and still is a Canadian gallon, but it is really the British Imperial gallon, which is about 20% larger than the US gallon. In fact no liquid measure is the same between the American and British Imperial systems, so Canadian oil companies decided it was easier just to dump the whole system and go with cubic metres and litres. They have lots of computers which can do the conversions if they need to do a financial report or press release.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 10:27, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Defined in terms of liters?

A "definition" of a unit implies an exact conversion spelled out in a government or trade group law or guide. So is this true? "In the United States, an oil barrel is defined as 42 US gallons, which is about 159 litres[10] or 35 imperial gallons,[11] and it can also be defined in those units, depending on the context." The only definition for the oil barrel I see in the article is the US one. Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:38, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

That's true, the only definition for the oil barrel is the US one, because it is solely a US unit. Outside of the US, metric units are standard. The rest of the world sells oil to the US in barrels because the US is the world's largest oil consumer and nobody wants to upset their largest customer by telling them that they are not the only important people in the world. Canada is by far the largest supplier of imported oil to the US (45% of US imports at the moment), and operates internally in metric, but given the billions of dollars involved, we don't want to upset the Americans by telling them that US units are not our standard and never were. Prior to metrication, Canada was on the British Imperial system, and none of the liquid measurement units were the same as in the US. Operating in metric and not telling the Americans about it is simpler. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:19, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I hope you at least get a full 500 ml when you order a beer at the pub, not one of those wimpy 470 ml US "pints." Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:43, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

It depends. In Canada none of the provincial governments nor the federal government enforce any particular standard for the "pint" since metrication, so it is whatever the pub serves you. If you visit one frequented by US tourists, it is likely to be the 470 ml US pint or "16 ounce pint", also known to British expats as the "short pint". In British Columbia they offer "sleeves" or "schooners" which also have no real definition, but appear to be even smaller. In other places it might be the 500 ml pint, which has no real name but might be called the "18 ounce pint" or "metric pint". In the brew pubs I usually visit, which brew the stuff themselves, you usually get served the full British Imperial pint of 568 (let's round it to 570) ml, otherwise known as the "20 ounce pint", the "long pint", or the "full pint". If you have any doubt, ask your server what kind of pint they serve, and in all except the aforementioned brew pubs they will have no idea what you are talking about. I've probably visited too many pubs doing research on that subject. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 23:26, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

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Oil density and temperature

How is this possible? "...the exact conversion factor [between gallons and m³] depends on oil density and temperature." That's obviously not true as written. I suspect that what's going on is Canada specifies oil volume must be measured at one temperature, and the US specifies a different temperature, but that's just a guess. Kendall-K1 (talk) 02:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Never mind, this is explained later on in the same section, and it is indeed a difference in the specified temperature. Kendall-K1 (talk) 04:01, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Ref 21

Ref 21 is in cubic meters rather than barrels. Keith Henson (talk)