Is a barrel of oil 55 gallons?
A standard 42-gallon crude oil barrel contains approximately 45 gallons of salable refined crude oil products per barrel.
Soon after America's first commercial oil well of 1859, a small group met in northwestern Pennsylvania and decided a 42-gallon barrel was best for transporting their oil. When filled with oil instead of fish or other commodities, a 42-gallon “tierce” weighed 300 pounds.
A standard barrel of oil contains 42 gallons.
In the oil industry, an oil barrel is defined as 42 US gallons or 158.987 litres, or 35 imperial gallons.
The defining moment of the slump—an event many market veterans would scarcely believed they were seeing—came on April 20, 2020. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, dropped to minus $40 a barrel. In places, oil had become akin to a waste product, something you had to pay people to take away.
Weekly oil prices in Brent, OPEC basket, and WTI futures 2020-2022. On November 14, 2022, the Brent crude oil price stood at 93.14 U.S. dollars per barrel, compared to 85.87 U.S. dollars for WTI oil and 94.42 for the OPEC basket.
According to current estimates, 80.4% (1,241.82 billion barrels) of the world's proven oil reserves are located in OPEC Member Countries, with the bulk of OPEC oil reserves in the Middle East, amounting to 67.1% of the OPEC total.
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.
Historically, Crude oil reached an all time high of 147.27 in July of 2008. Crude oil - data, forecasts, historical chart - was last updated on November of 2022.
The barrels finally changed in 1905, when Nellie Bly patented the steel drum still used today. Bly designed her barrels to carry more oil, 55 gallons, and to leak less. Her invention also caused the barrel's meaning to separate from its physical reality.
How many gallons of oil does it take to make 50 1?
For a 50:1 ratio of gas to oil, use 2.6 fluid ounces of oil per gallon of gas.
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.

Live interactive chart of West Texas Intermediate (WTI or NYMEX) crude oil prices per barrel. The current price of WTI crude oil as of November 25, 2022 is 76.55 per barrel.
The standard size barrel of crude oil or other petroleum product (abbreviated bbl) is 42 US gallons (35.0 imp gal; 159.0 L). This measurement originated in the early Pennsylvania oil fields, and permitted both British and American merchants to refer to the same unit, based on the old English wine measure, the tierce.
- Rotkäppchen-Mumm: Freyburg/Saxony-Anhalt in Germany -120,000 litres.
- Tübinger Riesenfass: Tübingen/Baden-Württemberg in Germany - 84,000 litres.
- Tommasi: Pedemonte di Valpolicella/Venetia in Italy - 33,000 litres.
According to a scenario developed and modeled by The Conference Board, the economic implications of US$200 oil are acute. Inflation would spike around the world and economic growth would slow. Already high inflation rates in places like the United States and the Eurozone would rise even higher.
The price of oil is set in the global marketplace. Oil is traded globally and can move from one market to another easily by ship, pipeline, or barge. As a result, the supply/demand balance determines the price for crude oil around the world.
It was then decided that the best way to transport oil would be inside a 42 gallon wooden tierce, a size for wine storage set by King Richard III in 1483. It weighed approximately 300 pounds and could be moved by a single man. This size uniformity is just what the oil industry of the 19th century needed.
In the first half of 2022 (January–June), U.S. exports of petroleum products averaged nearly 6 million barrels per day (b/d), the most first-half-of-year exports in Petroleum Supply Monthly data, going back to 1973.
Crude Oil Prices - Historical Annual Data | ||
---|---|---|
Year | Average Closing Price | Year High |
2022 | $96.36 | $123.70 |
2021 | $68.17 | $84.65 |
2020 | $39.68 | $63.27 |
How many barrels of oil does the US use a day 2022?
EIA projected crude production will rise to 11.91 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2022 and 12.77 million bpd in 2023 from 11.19 million bpd in 2021.
- Venezuela - 303.8.
- Saudi Arabia - 297.5.
- Canada - 168.1.
- Iran - 157.8.
- Iraq - 145.
- Russia - 107.8.
- Kuwait - 101.5.
- United Arab Emirates - 97.8.
Oil Reserves in the United States
The United States has proven reserves equivalent to 4.9 times its annual consumption. This means that, without imports, there would be about 5 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).
According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, it's not even close. The EIA reports that as of 2021, the U.S. produced 18.88 million barrels per day — or about 10 million per day more than no. 2 Saudi Arabia (10.84 million) and no. 3 Russia (10.78 million).
Other sources estimate that we will run out of fossil fuels much earlier – for example, oil deposits will be gone by 2052. We do not just have to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and switch to green energy because we run out of supplies, but also because coal and oil are harming our environment badly.