# "Barrels" of oil **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 27, 2008, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barrels-of-oil/450812 "2008-05-27T21:39:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barrels-of-oil/450812/1 "2008-05-27T21:39:22Z")
Whenever the television news carries a story about the rising price of a barrel of oil, they usually have some kind of stock footage running that shows workers moving barrels around, filling them with liquid, weighing them, maybe a shot down into the barrel before the lid goes on, showing some dark liquid inside. Now, I believe that in the petroleum industry, the “barrels” they speak of are a unit of measurement, not containers per se. The oil moves around in pipes and in tankers and in other continuous or batch stages, not in metal drums about waist high. But I see this footage so often, it’s gotten me wondering what it is they ARE showing us. Is it lubricating oil going out to users like JiffyLube, who dispense it with hoses rather than from little plastic quart bottles? Did they get the people who staged the fake Apollo landing footage, who are now available and looking for work, to whip something up? Did somebody screw up, and actually start bottling what comes out of the oil wells, and a camera crew was on hand to witness it? What gives? ---
**Author:** ![adirondack\_mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5a626/32.png) [@adirondack\_mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adirondack_mike)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barrels-of-oil/450812/2 "2008-05-27T21:52:51Z")
I had to look this up yesterday - so a barrel of oil is a unit of measure equal to 42 US gallons. As for the stock footage - well it could be just about anything. Many petroleum based products are shipped and moved about in 55-gallon drums, but so are many other things. Product like gasoline are usually moved by pipeline to distribution centers. Like many other TV and movie idioms - when they talk about the price of a barrel of oil the background footage should have barrels in it. They didn’t call it the boob tube for nothing. ---
**Author:** ![LonghornDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@LonghornDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonghornDave)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barrels-of-oil/450812/3 "2008-05-27T22:47:33Z")
You are correct. Oil is transported in pipelines, trucks, barges, tankers, or other similar things but not in barrels. It would too inefficient and expensive to use barrels. I doubt barrels have been used past the 19th century. It is simply a unit of measurement. I have no idea what it is that they are showing in the news reports that you are referencing. Tangent question: Why is the abbreviation for a barrel, bbl? I had originally heard this had something to do with Standard Oil using blue colored barrels, but this appears to be incorrect as the abbreviation predates the usage of blue barrels. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barrels-of-oil/450812/4 "2008-05-27T23:14:21Z")
[QUOTE=LonghornDave] You are correct. Oil is transported in pipelines, trucks, barges, tankers, or other similar things but not in barrels. It would too inefficient and expensive to use barrels. I doubt barrels have been used past the 19th century. It is simply a unit of measurement. I have no idea what it is that they are showing in the news reports that you are referencing. Tangent question: Why is the abbreviation for a barrel, bbl? I had originally heard this had something to do with Standard Oil using blue colored barrels, but this appears to be incorrect as the abbreviation predates the usage of blue barrels. [/QUOTE] Funny, too, how the usage carried over to carburetors: 4 bbl etc. Pound = lb, from Latin “libra.” Maybe bbl originated from another language. Or it could be to differentiate it from another abbreviation. If bushel were bl, instead of bu, maybe. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barrels-of-oil/450812/5 "2008-05-28T00:00:49Z")
[This article in Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_%28unit%29) talks about the 42 U.S. gallon measurement… “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. 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.” As to the OP, there are “packaged products” in the petroleum industry - they are packaged in barrels, drums, lubetainers, pails, and bottles of various sizes. Mostly lubes, but also Aviation fuel and Motor gasoline and diesels. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barrels-of-oil/450812/6 "2008-05-28T01:05:23Z")
In 1911, the abbreviation was bar. (according to a British encyclopedia, at least): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_abbreviations\_in\_use\_in\_1911](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_abbreviations_in_use_in_1911)