Saudi Arabian Oil Reserves Truth And Facts

Saudi Arabian Oil Reserves Truth And Facts

Saudi Arabia is the world’s most famous oil reserve nation. According to a Saudi government oil official, the kingdom’s crude oil reserves may have been overstated by up to 40%. The US is worried that Saudi Arabia may not have enough oil reserves to prevent a sharp rise in oil prices, according to cables from its embassy in Riyadh.

Introduction

The nation benefits from increased fuel costs as one of the major producers of oil around the globe. Furthermore, as the need to try and reduce those costs by boosting the supply of oil on the market becomes more pressing, Western nations are looking to improve their relations with Saudi Arabia.

It is one of the few oil-producing countries that have the ability to boost production swiftly. Oil is Saudi Arabia’s primary source of export revenue, accounting for 80% of its total export earnings and over 40% of the country’s GDP. But according to estimates, with the current pace of production, Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves will only endure for another 60 years. This is mainly due to the Western world’s long-term efforts to completely abandon fossil fuels.

The war in Ukraine may assist Saudi Arabia for now, but it is hastening the switch to renewable energy sources. It is viewed as a means for Europe to become less reliant on nations that produce fossil fuels, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.

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Information About Saudi Arabia’s Oil Reserves

According to estimates from 2017, Saudi Arabia’s proved oil reserves, which include 2.5 Gbbl in the Saudi-Kuwait neutral zone, totaled 268 billion barrels (43 109 m3), making them the second-largest in the world. At present, production rates would equate to more than 50 years of output.

An oil barrel is referred to in the oil business as 42 US gallons, equivalent to 159 liters or 35 imperial gallons. The Eastern Province is where most of the oil deposits are located. Until Venezuela stated in January 2011 that they had expanded their proved reserves to 297 Gbbl, these reserves were reportedly the greatest in the world.

About one-fifth of the world’s conventional oil reserves are in Saudi Arabia. Forty percent of the declared reserves have been produced in the past, and a significant portion of these reserves originate from a limited number of vast oil fields.

Saudi Misrepresenting Parameters Of Oil Reserve

Saudi Arabia has been grossly misrepresenting every parameter related to its oil business for many years, from how much crude it can produce to its level of reserves and everything in between. Saudi Arabia embellishes these numbers so much and so frequently. Because it has no actual power without the crude oil output, spare capacity, and related reserves, vastly inflating each of these numbers is intended to boost its perception of its geopolitical importance.

The issue Saudi Arabia is currently facing is that the United States and the other developed market nations are putting pressure on Riyadh to fulfill these promises to lower the high oil prices that are currently weighing down on their economy.

Saudi Arabia would not have a problem if it had not been lying all these years about how much oil it could produce, but because it has, it does.

Figures For Saudi Arabia’s Crude Oil Reserves

Saudi Arabia had 170 billion barrels of proved oil reserves in 1989. Still, just a year later, without the discovery of any significant new oil discoveries, the official estimate of reserves had inexplicably grown by 51.2 percent, to 257 billion barrels. It quickly rose once again to a little over 266 billion barrels, which stayed until a modest rise to just over 268 billion barrels in 2017. On the demand side of the equation, Saudi Arabia produced an average of 8.192 million barrels of crude oil per day from 1973 until the end of last week.

As a result, starting in 1989 (when 170 billion barrels of crude oil reserves were officially announced), Saudi Arabia has physically pumped and permanently removed a total of 95,682,560,000 barrels of crude oil from its oil fields over the following 32 years. No substantial new oil fields have been discovered within the same period. Despite this, Saudi Arabia’s crude oil reserves have increased rather than decreased.

Discovering The Truth

The cables, which range from 2007 to 2009, claim that Saudi Arabia may yet the world’s oil output will only reach 12 million barrels per day in ten years and that the world’s oil production may have peaked as early as 2012. The term “peak oil” refers to this critical point. Because the Saudi energy sector misrepresented its recoverable reserves to attract international investment, Aramco would be powerless to halt the rise in world oil prices. Aramco had drastically overestimated the time required to put fresh oil on tap.

First, despite what Aramco and energy optimists would want to claim, probably, Saudi reserves are not as plentiful as frequently claimed, nor is the production schedule for them as flexible.

Aramco now possesses 716 billion barrels of total reserves, of which 51% are recoverable, and will have 900 billion barrels of reserves in 20 years, according to Abdallah al-Saif, senior vice-president for exploration at the company. Al-Husseini rejects this research and thinks Aramco’s reserves are inflated by up to 300 billion barrels.

According to him, a constant production in decline will happen after 50% of the initially confirmed reserves have been used up, and no amount of effort will be able to halt it. The outcome will be a total output peak that lasts around 15 years, followed by declining output.

Conclusion

The Saudis are probably certainly exaggerating their capabilities. The reserves and their alleged “spare production capacity” for Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East are not audited. They could have some extra space, but not to the extent claimed. Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East raised their output a little bit, but not much, as one might have anticipated given their ostensible spare capacity, when oil prices jumped to $147 per barrel in July 2008.