Proven Reserves Politics

This is the politics underlining quoted proven reserves by countries, particularly those in the OPEC platform. The intention mostly is to exaggerate the volume of hydrocarbons reserves available to the country in an effort to attract political and economic influence in world affairs. This has always worked for nations with the political and economic power to tilt issues towards their direction in order to achieve an objective.  

  Examples of such underlining political intrigues suffice: Sadad al-Huseini, former head of exploration and production at Saudi Aramco, estimates 300 Gbbl (48×10^9 m3) of the world’s 1,200 Gbbl (190×10^9 m3) of proved reserves should be recategorized as speculative resources, though he did not specify which countries had inflated their reserves. Dr. Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, a former senior expert of the National Iranian Oil Company, has estimated that Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have overstated reserves by a combined 320–390bn barrels. “As for Iran, the usually accepted official 132 billion barrels (2.10×1010 m3) is almost one hundred billion over any realistic assay,” he said. Petroleum Intelligence Weekly reported that official confidential Kuwaiti documents estimate reserves of Kuwait were only 48 billion barrels (7.6×10^9 m3), of which half were proven and half were possible. The combined value of proven and possible is half of the official public estimate of proven reserves.

  Prospective resources

  Arctic Prospective Resources

  A 2008 United States Geological Survey estimates that areas north of the Arctic Circle have 90 billion barrels (1.4×1010 m3) of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil (and 44 billion barrels (7.0×109 m3) of natural gas liquids) in 25 geologically defined areas thought to have potential for petroleum. This represents 13% of the expected undiscovered oil in the world. Of the estimated totals, more than half of the undiscovered oil resources were estimated to occur in just three geologic provinces – Arctic Alaska, Amerasia Basin, and East Greenland Rift Basins. More than 70% of the mean undiscovered oil resources were estimated to occur in five provinces: Arctic Alaska, Amerasia Basin, East Greenland Rift Basins, East Barents Basins, and West Greenland–East Canada. It was further estimated that approximately 84% of the oil and gas would occur offshore. The USGS did not consider economic factors such as the effects of permanent sea ice or oceanic water depth in its assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources. This assessment was lower than a 2000 survey, which had included lands south of the Arctic Circle.

  Miscellaneous Prospective Resources

  The Exclusive Economic Zone is a delineated offshore area, mostly to the west and north of Cuba which under international agreements is owned by Cuba. This 112,000 square kilometer zone has been divided into 59 exploration blocks. A 2004 joint partnership between a Spanish oil company and Cuba’s state oil company (CUPET) estimated Cuba’s off-shore reserves to be able to ultimately produce between 4.6 and 9.3 billion barrels of crude oil. The US Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that Cuba has resources up to 9 billion barrels (1.4×109 m3) of oil. In October 2008, the Cuban government announced that it had discovered oil basins which would double its total oil resources to 20 billion barrels (3.2×109 m3). Note that consistent with the definitions of Reserves and Resources as given in the above sections, at this stage (June 2009), given no commercial discoveries to date, all recoverable oil estimates in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) are Prospective Resources estimates and not Reserves estimates.