Sue T asks: Why do we measure oil in barrels instead of gallons or liters? How much oil is in a barrel? Show A Barrel of Oil One barrel contains 42 gallons of crude oil from which, in the U.S., typically 19 gallons of gasoline are produced. In California, “additional other petroleum products such as alkylates” are added to the crude to create a “processing gain,” such that:
According to the California Energy Commission, each barrel of crude oil yields products as follows:
Why Oil is Measured in Barrels The market for crude oil really took off after Abraham Gesner began distilling kerosene in 1846. This lamp oil became very popular and as demand increased, so did the need for the crude oil it was derived from. The first successful drilled oil well (previously, it was all gleaned from “natural seepage”) was in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. Wooden Barrels In the mid-1800s, all liquids that needed a tight container of any size were stored in wooden barrels. Skilled coopers (barrel makers) had been producing watertight 42-gallon wooden barrels since Richard III set the size of a tierce of wine at 42 gallons in 1483-1484. However, to catch the oil booming from the new wells in Titusville, early producers were using any watertight container they could get their hands on, including “wooden tierces, whiskey barrels, casks and barrels of all sizes.” Nonetheless, the size of the container quickly became standardized around the 42-gallon barrel, due to practical considerations:
By 1860, in Pennsylvania the 42-gallon barrel had become standard. Because Pennsylvania was at the forefront of the early oil boom, its practices were soon adopted across the country. In 1872, 42 gallons became the standard for the Petroleum Producers Association and in 1882, the U.S.G.S. and the U.S. Bureau of Mines adopted the standard as well. Oil Tankers Bulk oil shipping – placing the oil in the cargo holds of ships – had been used since the 1870s, as had “cylindrical railroad tank cars.” By 1883, oil tankers were being built with bulkheads to stop the free-flowing oil in the holds from sloshing and potentially causing the ships to capsize. In the 1950s, in response to the closing of the Suez Canal, larger tankers that could more efficiently transport oil around the Cape of Good Hope were needed, and so the supertanker was born, and by 1958, ships that held about 700,000 barrels were being used to transport crude oil. As of 2011, the largest supertankers, the TI Europe and the TI Oceania, were able to carry over 3,000,000 barrels of oil in a single voyage. Oil Pipelines Pipelines were being used to transport crude oil from the beginning of the oil boom in the 1860s, but not until the early 1900s, when demand for petroleum greatly increased, were pipelines built across the country:
Early pipelines brought crude oil from “the prolific fields in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas to the refineries in the East,” and with the increased migration of Americans across the West, the pipelines moved in that direction as well. After oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in 1968, an 800-mile pipeline, from Valdez to Prince William Sound, known as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, was constructed and completed in 1977. At its height in the 1980s, it was carrying over 2,000,000 barrels each day. By 2012, that was reduced to 579,000. Today’s proposed Keystone XL Pipeline is set to transport crude oil from Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska, where:
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Bonus Oil Facts
Enjoy this article? Join over 50,000 Subscribers getting our FREE Daily Knowledge and Weekly Wrap newsletters: How many gallons of gas do you get from a barrel of crude oil?Petroleum refineries in the United States produce about 19 to 20 gallons of motor gasoline and 11 to 12 gallons of ultra-low sulfur distillate fuel oil (most of which is sold as diesel fuel and in several states as heating oil) from one 42-gallon barrel of crude oil.
Is a barrel of oil 42 or 55 gallons?When it comes to oil, did you know that a "barrel of crude" contains only 42 gallons rather than 55 gallons like —most of us associate with the size of an average industrial barrel? This amount became the standard back in the mid-1800's during the first American oil boom in Titusville, Pennsylvania.
How much gas does a 55 gallon drum of oil make?A barrel of crude oil is only 42 gallons, not 55 gallons. So to answer your question: On average a barrel of WTI crude oil produces approximately 20 gallons of gas.
How many gallons of oil does it take to make a gallon of gas?Approximately 2 gallons of crude oil to refine 1 gallon of gasoline.
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