Oil and Gas 101
Measuring Energy
Different types of energy are measured by different physical units:
- Barrels or Gallons for Petroleum
- Cubic Feet for Natural Gas
- Kilowatt-hours for electricity
Common Abbreviations
- Bbl = barrel
- b/d = barrels per day
- Mcf = thousand cubic feet
- MMcf = million cubic feet
- Bcf = billion cubic feet
- Tcf = trillion cubic feet
- BTU = British Thermal Unit
- NGL = Natural Gas liquids
- LPG = Liquefied Petroleum Gases
Energy Conversions
1 Barrel of Crude Oil =
- 42 gallons
- 5,800,000 BTU of energy
- 5,614 cubic feet of natural gas
1 Metric Ton of Crude Oil =
- 2,204 pounds
- 7.46 barrels of domestic crude oil
- 6.99 barrels of foreign crude oil
One cubic foot of Natural Gas =
- 7.48 gallons
- 1,027 BTU of energy
- 0.000178 barrel of crude oil
One cubic meter of Natural Gas =
- 35.314 cubic feet
Crude Oil Conversion Factors
| FROM | TO | ||||
| Tonnes (metric) | Kilo-litres | Barrels | US Gallons | Tonnes per year | |
| Multiply By | |||||
| Tonnes (metric) | 1 | 1.165 | 7.33 | 307.86 | – |
| Kilolitres | 0.8581 | 1 | 6.2898 | 264.17 | – |
| Barrels | 0.1364 | 0.159 | 1 | 42 | – |
| US Gallons | 0.00325 | 0.0038 | 0.0238 | 1 | – |
| Barrels per day | – | – | – | – | 49.8 |