Big Oil is a name used to describe the world's six or seven largest publicly traded oil and gas companies, also known as supermajors. The term emphasizes their economic power and influence on politics, particularly in the United States. Big oil is often associated with the fossil fuels lobby and also used to refer to the industry as a whole in a pejorative or derogatory manner. E&P companies measure oil production in barrels. One barrel, usually abbreviated as bbl, is 42 U.S. gallons. Companies often describe production in terms of bbl per day or bbl per quarter. A common methodology in the oil patch is to use a prefix of "m" to indicate 1,000 and a prefix of "mm" to indicate one million. The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transporting, and marketing of petroleum products. The largest volume products of the industry are fuel oil and gasoline. Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, synthetic fragrances, and plastics. The extreme monetary value of oil and its products has led to it being known