World's oil reserves might be much larger than estimated

William Atkins
Saturday, 21 June 2008 20:40

Science - Energy

The MoneyNews article “Saudi Oil Exec: Crude Reserves Figures Bunk” states the following from a former high ranking official with the Saudi Arabian goverment:

“Junk your SUV and buy an electric scooter. Recent claims by various OPEC leaders that the world has plenty of oil left are bunk, alleges Sadad Al-Husseini, a former top executive at Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company. Oil-producing countries are inflating the size of their oil reserves by as much as 300 billion barrels by padding supposedly proven reserves with “probable” reserves and tar and oil sands, according to Husseini.”

Whether we have more oil than currently estimated, less oil than currently estimated, or are right on target is probably a difficult number to know due to different agendas by the various factions of the oil industry.

Here seems to be the current consensus, and basis summary of the world's position for its oil supply and demand, for the near future.

According to the Reuter’s article “World proven oil reserves at end 2006 edge down,” “Global reserves are more than sufficient to meet current production levels for more than 40 years, although accessing the oil is getting tougher due to high exploration and production costs and also to more state control of production…. World reserves stood at 1.208 trillion barrels at the end of 2006, fractionally lower than 1.209 trillion at end-2005.”