World Oil Reserves Fell for First Time in 10 Years, BP Says
By Rachel Graham and Alexander Kwiatkowski
June 10 (Bloomberg) -- Global proved oil reserves fell last year, the first drop since 1998, led by declines in Russia, Norway and China, according to BP Plc.
Oil reserves totaled 1.258 trillion barrels at the end of 2008, compared with a revised 1.261 trillion barrels a year earlier, BP said in its annual Statistical Review of World Energy posted on its Web Site today. The world has enough reserves for 42 years at current production rates, BP said.
BP and other oil companies are struggling to replace reserves as access to deposits becomes harder and older fields in places like the U.K. and Mexico are depleted. Russia passed a law last year that limits foreign ownership in some of the country’s biggest energy and metals deposits. Middle East countries, which hold 60 percent of global reserves, restrict access for international companies.
“Our data confirms the world has enough reserves of oil, natural gas and coal to meet the world’s needs for decades to come,” BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward said in his introduction to the report. “The Challenges the world faces in growing supplies to meet future demand are not below ground, they are above ground. They are human, not geological.”
Saudi Arabia’s reserves, the world’s largest, stood at 264.1 billion barrels, little changed from 264.2 billion a year earlier, BP said. The Middle East as a whole holds 754.1 billion barrels, compared with 755 billion barrels last year.
“Declines in Russia, Norway, China and other countries offset increases in Vietnam, India and Egypt,” BP said on its Web site.
Canadian Oil Sands
Including Canadian oil sands deposits of 150.7 billion barrels, total global reserves stood at 1.409 trillion barrels, the review said.
BP made an upward revision to 2007’s global oil reserves of 23.1 billion barrels, with the largest increases in OPEC members Venezuela and Angola.
None of the biggest international oil companies have replaced output through new discoveries or extending fields in the past six years, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said in an April 2 report. Companies such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company by market capitalization, are looking at acquisitions to boost reserves, Bernstein said.
BP said the estimates in today’s report are a combination of official sources, OPEC data and other third-party estimates. Oil reserves include gas condensates and natural gas liquids, as well as crude oil.
bloomberg.com |
