Mass rather than volume (barrel) is more important. That's why density is used
to determine light vs. heavy crude oil. In aviation, weight (mass) is used to
determine load of fuel to be carried (to be lifted). The SI would be so useful
to avoid confusion and to help in making comparisons.
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Naughtin
To: U.S. Metric Association
Cc: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 2:43 AM
Subject: [USMA:41056] Re: Time magazine, June 16, 2008, page 20, "A Brief
History of:The Oil Barrel"
Dear Norman (again),
I have interspersed some remarks.
On 2008/06/12, at 2:55 AM, Norman & Nancy Werling wrote:
If you have the magazine, I commend the subject article for your reading.
It was the old whisky barrel that became the measure of crude oil in the United
States. The article explains that Japan measures crude oil in kiloliters and
Russia measures it in metric tons (tonnes).
If you refer to the article 'Does Oil Really Come in Barrels? NOT ANYMORE.'
By Daniel Engber (Posted Thursday, March 24, 2005) at
http://www.slate.com/id/2115219/ you will see that although 40 gallon whiskey
barrels were used to transport oil it seems to me that 'the 42-gallon "cran" of
herring, for example, or the 42-gallon "tierce" of lard.' are more likely
precursors for the barrel. My own suspicion is that the closeness of the two
volumes 42 US gallons and 35 UK gallons might have played some part as they are
quite close so that trade international could take place (between Canada and
the USA for example). Here are the comparisons:
42 US gallons = 158.987295 litres
35 Imperial gallons = 159.113216 litres
An excerpt includes this, "1866--Oil companies agree to standard barrel
size, 42 gal. (160 L) for tax purposes." In a posting I made about two weeks
ago, I mentioned that Time includes SI-metric terms within parentheses with
usually reasonable approximations.
Wikipedia puts an alternate view at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_(unit) suggesting that the oil companies
were comfortable about giving an extra two gallons per barrel to ensure
customer happiness — I have some troubles with this idea. Wikipedia (same page)
also mentions the oddities MBBL for thousand barrels and MMBBL for million
barrels.
In this case, the exact calculation would have been 158.9872956 L
(3.7854118 times 42) which would have been ridiculous if shown to such a degree
of accuracy. It would have been negative toward promoting acceptance of
SI-metric.
There seems to be some confusion here.
The Google calculator reports that:
1 barrel = 117.347765 litres
The Canadian government at http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/About_Us/1132.asp says
that:
A barrel is approximately 35 Imperial gallons, 42 U.S. gallons or 159 litres,
roughly equivalent to the volume of liquid held by a standard bathtub.
As all of these refer to a slightly different volume, I don't think that I
could rely on the Canadian government to measure my purchases and sales of oil
products.
And http://www.calculateme.com/Volume/Barrels(Petroleum)/ToLiters.htm says
that:
1 Barrels (Petroleum) = 158.987294928 Liters but this does not match either
your accuracy or your precision.
I don't seem to be able to find a 'standard' 'official' 'industry' definition
of a barrel so I suppose we could settle for NIST's:
1 barrel [for petroleum, 42 gallons (U.S.)](bbl) = 158.987 3 liters.
By the way, the photo that accompanied the Time article showed only 200 litre
drums — there were no barrels in sight. As you know the 200 litre drum was
designed in Germany in the early 1930s together with its smaller relative the
'Jerry can', that held 20 litres. When the 200 litre drum arrived in Australia
the locals filled it with Imperial gallons and it was for many years known here
as the '44'. I understand that a similar 200 litre drum, when it arrived in the
USA, was filled with USA (Queen Anne wine) gallons and the 200 litre drum was
then known as a '55'. In all cases it was the same 200 litre drum that was
initially designed to hold 10 Jerry cans full of fuel.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped
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