Ukrainian FP-1 drones struck the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast overnight, sparking a fire at the facility with an annual capacity of 12.5 million metric tons, Ukrainian company Fire Point said on Oct. 18.
Ukrainian FP-1 drones struck the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast overnight, sparking a fire at the facility with an annual capacity of 12.5 million metric tons, Ukrainian company Fire Point said on Oct. 18.
This is the second time recently I’ve seen oil listed in metric tons rather than barrels. Has this become a common thing?
It hasn’t, but should be: there isn’t any non-crazy reason to use some unique measurement system specifically for oil. Doesn’t make any sense. Plain stupidity.
So, what’s the density of the oil produced? You have to give us that to convert to metric tons.
Metric Tons = Barrels X 0.158987 X Density (in t/m^3)
https://metacad.io/en/converters/oil-barrels/
Barrels sounding less stupid yet?
No, they don’t. As stupid as they were.
When I need mass I use kg. When I need volume I use m^3
You’re kinda missing the point. The density is variable with oil, volume is not, hence using “barrels”.
Use kg, now we don’t know the volume. Use m^3, now we don’t know the mass. “Barrels” kinda fudges the difference so we have an idea of what we’re talking about. It was never meant to be a scientific term, though it can be with the math I posted.
May as well just use m3, as i purchase my fuel in L and its easier to convert them.
I mean the density is far less definable right? Like because it’s hotter in Saudi Arabia than Norway, that would mean that Saudi barrels are worse?
Barrel is literally no different than using metric volume. It’s exactly as accurate, since both are units of volume. The standard barrel has pressure and temperature references for the contents filling the volume, but the volume unit in that scenario is arbitrary, and could just as well use liters.
The commenter you are responding to is either confused or intentionally misleading. The same volume, the barrel, can be expressed in other units of volume. What matters for the standard unit in oil are the conditions and external parameters. The unit is interchangeable and carries none of that actually important meta.
If the entire world sells a product of a specific unit, changing that unit doesn’t make it better… It means we now have to convert it to understand the exact amount someone is discussing. That’s like the U.K buying in liters, cars rated in mpg and having road signs saying kph. But wait, which liter is it? Madness, lol.
How much oil is in a barrel? Is it 300 chuckduplets?
I have no idea, but every human and piece of software in the industry does.
How much oil in a barrel is easy, X gallons or X liters or whatever. How many metric tons of oil depends on density, and oil varies. Not so easy.
Yeah mass isn’t the right measure, but it could just as well be expressed in metric units of volume, i.e liters. Barrels aren’t special when they express the same thing.
I think the reporter might’ve used the metric ton as a general expression of “a lot” in their head and meant to express volume. If metric system isn’t familiar to them, it might not be obvious that a metric ton is for mass and in general metric units use kilos for thousands.