Oil Barrels to Cubic Inches (bbl to in³)

1 oil barrel equals 9,702 cubic inches exactly.

1 oil barrel = 9,702 cubic inches

How to convert oil barrels to cubic inches

To convert oil barrels to cubic inches, multiply the number of oil barrels by 9,702. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply cubic inches by 0.0001030715316 (rounded).

cubic inches = oil barrels × 9,702

Example: 10 oil barrels = 97,020 cubic inches.

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

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

Cubic Inch (in³)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

Exactly 16.387064 mL. Used for engine displacement in the US and for small mechanical parts.

Cubic inch is a unit defined by a ruler. Take an inch, build a cube, and its volume is exactly 16.387064 milliliters under the modern definition of the inch as 25.4 millimeters. Its main role in history is as the building block behind other US volumes: the US gallon is defined as 231 cubic inches, so a cubic inch is exactly 1/231 of a gallon. Even the 42-gallon oil barrel works out to precisely 9,702 of them.

The cubic inch survives most visibly in American engines, which are abbreviated c.i.d. for cubic inch displacement, while the rest of the world and many modern automakers speak in liters. A 5.7 liter engine is about 350 cubic inches, a conversion made easy by the exact factor of 16.387064. Small mechanical parts are also sized in cubic inches in North America.

1 cubic inch = 0.016387064 liters (exactly).

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

Related conversions

See all volume units.