The world is using about 85 million barrels of oil every day.

 

Each 42 gallon barrel is ...


  1. • 30 inches tall

  2. • 20 inches in diameter

Now imagine placing the 85,000,000 barrels end to end, like this ...

... we would have a 20 inch diameter “pipeline” and its length would be:

85,000,000 x 30 inches x

1 foot

12 inches

1 nautical mile

6000 feet

x

= 35,416 nautical miles

This means that every day the world uses all the oil that would be contained in a 20 inch pipeline that circles the earth more than 1.5 times at the equator:

If we think of oil as flowing out of this pipeline to meet world demand, then since all the oil in the pipeline is used every day, a barrel that enters the pipeline at some time would emerge at the other end having travelled 35,416 nautical miles in 24 hours.

35,416 nm

24 hrs

= 1475 knots

That means the oil in the pipeline would have to be flowing at a speed of:

... or 1676 mph which is faster than Mach 2 and most rifle bullets.

This rate of use is still growing to meet rising world oil demand, but since the rate of discovery of new oil has been falling since 1963, it can’t continue growing much longer.