WATCHING THE WORLD OIL AND GAS UNITS IN THE DARK AGES

In many ways, the oil and gas industry has made huge leaps in recent years.

Directional drilling and 3D seismic surveying quickly come to mind as only two of a collection of technologies that helps companies produce oil from reservoirs once thought unviable.

Yet in one way the oil and gas industry has remained in the Dark Ages. Its diverse, illogical units of measure are enough to make even the game of cricket seem straightforward.

On your first day in the oil industry you are told that oil is measured in barrels. Fair enough. Then you are told that a barrel is abbreviated "bbl" Not "b" or "brl" or "bl" as you might expect, but "bbl."

No one I have met has been able to explain to me why barrel gets shortened this way, So I imagine the abbreviation was first used by an oilman with a stammer and noted down by a dyslexic stenographer.

A barrel contains 42 U.S. gallons or 34.97 Imperial gallons. Despite this small potential for confusion, the barrel would be a handy unit if every one moved oil about in 42 U.S. gal-Ion or 34.97 British gallon barrels.

To my knowledge, though, companies these days largely move their oil about in pipelines or tankers.

GAS CONFUSION

While the bbl unit nowadays seem merely outmoded, measures of gas volume are a grind.

The British thermal unit, BTU, is what the U.S. usually uses to measure its gas. Oddly enough, the British don't use British thermal units to measure gas. just to be difficult, the British prefer to measure gas in therms. A therm is 100,000 BTU, so conversion involves mental juggling of an awkward number of zeroes.

Gas volumes of cubic feet and cubic meters are easy to convert, but many organizations apparently set out to confuse everyone by expressing gas volumes in metric tons of oil equivalent or, even worse, tonnes (the same thing as metric tons) of coal equivalent.

Toughest of the lot is conversion of gas measurements that are expressed in kilowatt hours to afford an indication of heating properties. It helps to cross the fingers of the left hand while pressing calculator keys with the right.

The U.S. measures oil in barrels, water depth in feet, length in miles, and gas volumes in cubic feet. Americans also measure weight in tons-long or short, to add to the confusion.

Much of the rest of the world, Britain apart, prefers cubic meters (often spelled metres) for volume depth in meters, length in kilometres, and weight in kilograms or tonnes.

METRIC BIAS

U.K. has accepted some metric units but clings to old favorites from the British Imperial system, too. Britain's reluctance could be because the metric Systeme Internationale units were invented by a Frenchman. I prefer the metric system, because lots of the units relate to each other in useful, logical ways. A liter of water weighs a kilogram, for example.

Also, with the metric system you need only to be able to multiply and divide by multiples of 10. Because I have 10 fingers, this suits me fine.

However, I can cope with any bizarre unit of oil volume, water depth, or whatever, so long as everyone else uses it and doesn't convert it to a number of even weirder units for something vaguely related.

If the oil industry is as keen as it says to cut costs, it should look into how much time and miscalculation could be saved by requiring engineers, economists, and accountants to use the same units of measure in every country.

International oil institutions should assemble a group of rational people from around the world to recommend a set of units. As a cricket loving Brit, however, I don't rate my chances too high of being asked to join the group.