US oil reserves now the world's largest

Oil Price:

The U.S. holds more oil reserves than anyone else in the world, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela.

That conclusion comes from a new independent estimate from Rystad Energy, a Norwegian consultancy. Rystad estimates that the U.S. holds 264 billion barrels of oil, more than half of which is located in shale. That total exceeds the 256 billion barrels found in Russia, and the 212 billion barrels located in Saudi Arabia.

The findings are surprising, and go against conventional wisdom that Saudi Arabia and Venezuela hold the world’s largest oil reserves. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, for example, pegs Venezuela’s oil reserves at 298 billion barrels, the largest in the world. Rystad Energy says that these are inflated estimates because much of those reserves are not discovered. Instead, Rystad estimates that Venezuela only has about 95 billion barrels, which includes its estimate for undiscovered oil fields.

Moreover, Rystad argues that there are not uniform ways of measuring oil reserves from country to country. Some countries report proven reserves, using conservative estimates from existing oil fields. Other countries, like Venezuela, report undiscovered reserves. But Rystad applied similar metrics to all countries in its report to make comparisons easier. “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.” The latest assessment, Rystad argues, paints a more accurate portrait.

The U.S., then, sits atop with its oil reserves. Rystad notes that Texas alone could have 60 billion barrels of oil.
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I suspect the Texas figure probably understates the reserves in Texas.  Under President Trump, the US is finally achieving its potential in oil and gas production and that will increase as more infrastructure is put in place to deliver it to market.  Democrats and their New Green Deal are the biggest threat to energy production in the US.  The Green New Deal would be an economic disaster brought on by a false sense of urgency about alleged climate change.  The proponents of climate change have consistently overstated the dire consequences and their models also continue to overstate the impact of CO2.

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