Barrels to Liters Converter (bbl to L)
1 oil barrel (bbl) = 42 US gal = 158.987294928 L exactly. Convert barrels of crude oil to liters, with charts and beer-barrel comparisons.
Liter (L) = Barrel (bbl) × 158.987294928
Barrel (bbl): This is the petroleum barrel used to price crude oil: exactly 42 US gallons, or about 158.99 liters. Beer and other liquid barrels are different sizes.
Liter (L): The liter is the metric unit of volume accepted for use with the SI. Since 1964 it has been defined as exactly one cubic decimeter, which is 1,000 cubic centimeters.
| Barrel (bbl) | Liter (L) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 158.987294928 |
| 5 | 794.93647464 |
| 10 | 1589.87294928 |
| 25 | 3974.6823732 |
| 50 | 7949.3647464 |
| 100 | 15898.7294928 |
Crude oil is priced, produced and reported in barrels, but fuel sold at the pump and most national energy statistics outside North America use liters, cubic meters or tonnes. The petroleum barrel is exactly 42 US gallons, which fixes it at 158.987294928 L, just under 159 L, so a million barrels equals about 159 million liters.
The barrel is now a unit of account rather than a container. Oil moves by pipeline, tanker and rail car, and the steel drums used for oil and chemicals usually hold 55 US gallons, not 42. Beer has its own US barrel of 31 gallons, and the table compares these with the oil barrel.
How to use this tool
- Type a value in the Barrel box to see it in liters, or type in the Liter box to convert the other way.
- Press ⇄ to swap the two units, or Load example for a typical value.
- Check the charts below for common values; for other units, open the Volume converter.
Formula
Liter (L) = Barrel (bbl) × 158.987294928
Barrel (bbl) = Liter (L) × 0.00628981077043
Both factors come from exact definitions: 1 liter = 0.00628981077043 barrels and 1 barrel = 158.987294928 liters (shown to 12 significant digits).
Example
Two conversions worked with the same factors the converter uses:
100 bbl × 158.987294928 ≈ 15898.7 L
1000 L × 0.00628981077043 ≈ 6.28981 bbl
Barrel to Liter chart
Common values from barrels to liters, rounded to four decimal places.
| Barrel (bbl) | Liter (L) |
|---|---|
| 0.25 | 39.7468 |
| 0.5 | 79.4936 |
| 1 | 158.9873 |
| 2 | 317.9746 |
| 5 | 794.9365 |
| 10 | 1,589.87 |
| 20 | 3,179.75 |
| 50 | 7,949.36 |
| 100 | 15,898.73 |
| 159 | 25,278.98 |
| 250 | 39,746.82 |
| 500 | 79,493.65 |
| 1,000 | 158,987.29 |
| 5,000 | 794,936.47 |
| 10,000 | 1,589,872.95 |
| 100,000 | 15,898,729.49 |
| 1,000,000 | 158,987,294.9 |
Liter to Barrel chart
The reverse direction for values people often look up.
| Liter (L) | Barrel (bbl) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.0063 |
| 10 | 0.0629 |
| 100 | 0.629 |
| 159 | 1.0001 |
| 200 | 1.258 |
| 1,000 | 6.2898 |
| 10,000 | 62.8981 |
| 100,000 | 628.9811 |
| 1,000,000 | 6,289.81 |
| 1,000,000,000 | 6,289,810.77 |
Barrel-related volumes
| Item | Barrel (bbl) | Liter (L) |
|---|---|---|
| Half-barrel beer keg (15.5 US gal) | 0.369 | 58.6739 |
| US beer barrel (31 US gal) | 0.7381 | 117.3478 |
| Oil barrel, the pricing unit | 1 | 158.9873 |
| Steel drum (55 US gal) | 1.3095 | 208.1976 |
| A thousand barrels (Mbbl) | 1,000 | 158,987.29 |
| Very large crude carrier, about 2 million bbl | 2,000,000 | 317,974,589.9 |
Quick mental estimate
Multiply the barrels by 160: 5 bbl → 800 L. The exact answer is 794.94 L, so the shortcut is about 0.6% high.
Use the converter or the charts when the exact figure matters.
The two units
Barrel (bbl): This is the petroleum barrel used to price crude oil: exactly 42 US gallons, or about 158.99 liters. Beer and other liquid barrels are different sizes.
Liter (L): The liter is the metric unit of volume accepted for use with the SI. Since 1964 it has been defined as exactly one cubic decimeter, which is 1,000 cubic centimeters.
Frequently asked questions
Why is an oil barrel 42 gallons?
Pennsylvania oil producers settled on the 42-gallon barrel in the 1860s, when oil really was shipped in wooden barrels, and the size stuck as the industry's unit. US measurement tables now fix it at exactly 42 US gallons.
How much gasoline comes from one barrel of crude oil?
According to the US Energy Information Administration, US refineries produce about 19 to 20 US gallons of motor gasoline and 11 to 13 gallons of distillates such as diesel from each 42-gallon barrel. That is roughly 72 to 76 L of gasoline per 159 L barrel; the rest becomes jet fuel, liquefied petroleum gases, asphalt and other products.
What do bbl, Mbbl and MMbbl mean?
bbl is the standard abbreviation for a barrel. In oil-industry usage M stands for a thousand and MM for a million, from the Roman numeral, so 1 MMbbl is one million barrels, about 159 million liters.
How precise is the result?
The converter uses the exact definitions above with browser floating-point arithmetic and shows up to 12 significant digits. The charts round to four decimal places for reading.
Sources
Last updated:
Page address with these inputs: https://kakao.mobile/tools/barrel-to-liter-converter/
Cite or embed this tool
kakaoCalc. (2026, November 8). Barrels to Liters Converter (bbl to L). https://kakao.mobile/tools/barrel-to-liter-converter/
“Barrels to Liters Converter (bbl to L).” kakaoCalc, 8 Nov. 2026, kakao.mobile/tools/barrel-to-liter-converter/.
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