Cubic Yards to Oil Barrels (yd³ to bbl)

1 cubic yard equals 4.80890538 oil barrels (rounded).

1 cubic yard = 4.80890538 oil barrels

How to convert cubic yards to oil barrels

To convert cubic yards to oil barrels, multiply the number of cubic yards by 4.80890538. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply oil barrels by 0.2079475309 (rounded).

oil barrels = cubic yards × 4.80890538

Example: 10 cubic yards = 48.0890538 oil barrels.

Pints, quarts, gallons and fluid ounces differ between the US and the UK. Units are labeled 'US' or 'imperial' to avoid confusion.

About these units

Cubic Yard (yd³)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

27 cubic feet or 764.555 liters. Used for soil, gravel and concrete in the US.

Cubic yard is a cube three feet on each side, which makes it exactly 27 cubic feet or 46,656 cubic inches. In metric terms it is about 0.7646 cubic meters, or 764.55 liters. The unit follows the yard in the United States and Canada, and British railways once rated ballast wagons by it, with one Great Western Railway wagon holding 8 cubic yards.

A cubic yard is easier to picture than the number suggests. It holds about 202 US gallons, or nearly five oil barrels. That is a scale where bulk materials such as soil, gravel, mulch and concrete are naturally counted, so a patio slab or garden bed needs a handful of them. A handy rule of thumb follows from the arithmetic: one cubic yard spread one inch deep covers 324 square feet.

1 cubic yard = 764.554858 liters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Cubic yard; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume

Oil Barrel (bbl)

US customaryCurrent unit

Exactly 42 US gallons (158.987 L). The unit of crude oil trade since the 1860s Pennsylvania oil fields.

The oil barrel did not come from the oil industry's own design but from the barrels already lying around Pennsylvania. After Drake's well of 1859 started a boom, producers shipped crude in whatever containers were handy: whiskey barrels of around 40 gallons, plus 42 and 45 gallon casks. Buyers grew suspicious of the inconsistency, and around 1866 producers settled on the wine tierce of 42 gallons, two gallons bigger than the common whiskey barrel. An Oil City circular of August 1866 also promised an allowance of two gallons in every 40.

By 1872 the 42-gallon standard was firmly established, and US government bodies adopted it in 1882. The barrel is exactly 42 US gallons, about 159 liters, and remains the worldwide pricing unit for crude, even though many countries report volumes in cubic meters. EIA says Strait of Hormuz flows of 20 million barrels a day equal about a fifth of global consumption, implying roughly 100 million barrels a day. The abbreviation bbl has a disputed origin: a popular story links it to Standard Oil's blue barrels, but the abbreviation predates the oil industry.

1 oil barrel = 158.9872949 liters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Barrel (unit); NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume; EIA: Today in Energy, Strait of Hormuz oil flows

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