bbl for barrel?

Harlan Sage · Post by **Harlan Sage** » Mon May 10, 2004 7:41 am

Maybe this is are real silly question, but is has been bugging me for a long time.

Q: Why is barrel abreviated "bbl" when there is only 1 "b" in barrel?

Just one of those things that makes me say hymmm.

Harlan

IronSight · Post by **IronSight** » Mon May 10, 2004 9:17 am

Harlan,
I used to work for a petroleum pipeline co. and this bugged me back then. Did some research and here's the answer:

Barrel
A standard measure of liquid hydrocarbons equal to 42 gallons. The abbreviation for barrel is "bbl". In the early development of the petroleum industry, the 40 gallon barrel used by many industries was increased to 42 gallons to compensate the buyer for evaporation during transport. Because of significant fraud and misrepresentation, the only barrels guaranteed to be 42 barrels were the blue barrels manufactured for and used by Standard Oil. Thus the standard measure for oil became the blue 42-gallon barrel or "bbl".

Harlan Sage · Post by **Harlan Sage** » Mon May 10, 2004 9:37 am

Iron,

Thanks for the info, very interesting, it still bugs me tho!
For future posts when I use bl rather than bbl everyone will know why. In my mind blue petroleum barrels have nothing to do with rifle barrels.
That my story and I'm sticking to it.

Harlan

IronSight · Post by **IronSight** » Mon May 10, 2004 9:49 am

Unless of course the rifle barrel happens to be 'blued'

crazeyiven · Post by **crazeyiven** » Tue May 11, 2004 8:27 am

IronSight-

Very interesting story!

And for your response of "blued" barrel, 10 points!

Thanks,