United States now holds more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia

A new, independent estimate of world oil reserves has been released by Rystad Energy, which shows that the US now holds more recoverable oil reserves than both Saudi Arabia and Russia. In the US, more than 50% of remaining oil reserves are unconventional shale oil. Texas alone holds more than 60 billion bbls of shale oil according to this new data.

The new reserves data from Rystad Energy also distinguishes between reserves in existing fields, in new projects and potential reserves in recent discoveries and even in yet undiscovered fields. An established standard approach for estimating reserves is applied to all fields in all countries, so reserves can be compared apple to apple across the world, both for OPEC and non-OPEC countries. Other public sources of global oil reserves, like the BP Statistical Review, are based on official reporting from national authorities, reporting reserves based on a diverse and opaque set of standards.

Some OPEC countries like Venezuela report official reserves apparently including yet undiscovered oil, while others like China and Brazil officially report conservative estimates and only for existing fields.

Rystad Energy now estimates total global oil reserves at 2092 billion bbls, or 70 times the current production rate of about 30 billion bbls of crude oil per year. For comparison, cumulatively produced oil up to 2015 amounts to 1300 billion bbls. Unconventional oil recovery accounts for 30% of the global recoverable oil reserves while offshore accounts for 33% of the total. The seven major oil companies hold less than 10% of the total. This data confirms that there is a relatively limited amount of recoverable oil left on the planet. With the global car-park possibly doubling from 1 billion to 2 billion cars over the next 30 years, it becomes very clear that oil alone cannot satisfy the growing need for individual transport.

Per Magnus Nysveen, Head of Analysis, Rystad Energy

Adapted by David Bizley

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