The barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) is a unit of energy based on the approximate energy released by burning one

barrel A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, ...

(, or ) of

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...

. The BOE is used by oil and gas companies in their financial statements as a way of combining oil and

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...

reserves and production into a single measure, although this energy equivalence does not take into account the lower financial value of energy in the form of gas. The U.S.

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory t ...

defines a BOE as equal to 5.8 million BTU. (, about HHV.html" ;"title="Higher_heating_value.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Higher heating value">HHV">Higher_heating_value.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Higher heating value">HHV/nowiki>, or about .) The value is necessarily approximate as various grades of oil and gas have slightly different heating values. If one considers the lower heating value instead of the higher heating value, the value for one BOE would be approximately 5.4 GJ (see

tonne of oil equivalent The tonne of oil equivalent (toe) is a unit of energy defined as the amount of energy released by burning one tonne of crude oil. It is approximately 42 gigajoules or 11.630 megawatt-hours, although as different crude oils have different calorifi ...

). Typically or 58 Therm, CCF are equivalent to one BOE. The United States Geological Survey, USGS gives a figure of of typical natural gas. A commonly used multiple of the BOE is the Metric system, kilo barrel of oil equivalent (kboe or kBOE), which is 1,000 BOE. Other common multiples are the million barrels per day, MMboed (or MMBOED, MMboepd, where MM denotes a

million One million (1,000,000), or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian ''millione'' (''milione'' in modern Italian), from ''mille'', "thousand", plus the a ...

), used to measure daily production and consumption, and the BBOe (also BBOE) or billion barrels of oil equivalent, representing 10⁹ barrels of oil, used to measure petroleum reserves. Metric regions (consisting of all nations except the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

) commonly use the

(TOE), or more often million TOE (MTOE). Since this is a measurement of weight, any conversion to barrels of oil equivalent depends on the density of the oil in question, as well as the energy content. Typically 1 tonne of oil has a volume of . The United States EIA suggests 1 TOE has an average energy value of .Conversion Factors
retrieved 16 October 2008

References

Petroleum economics Units of energy Equivalent units

See also

References