Bbl
- The correct title of this article is bbl. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
In reference to petroleum, specifically oil and natural gas liquids, bbl is an abbreviation for 1 barrel, equal to exactly 42 U.S. gallons, or approximately 159 liters. 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.) While North American markets typically measure oil in barrels, elsewhere oil is more commonly measured in cubic meters (m³) and less commonly in metric tonnes (t). Natural gas is measured differently.
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.). By the early 1870s, the 42-gallon barrel had been adopted as the standard for oil trade. 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).
“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). Note: Some web sites are claiming 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.” [1]
In the automotive world, the abbreviation also means “barrels”, but in the sense of carburetor barrels.
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