Any claim that reserves have "grown" is specious. It just means that more oil in a reservoir may be available using more advanced techniques, or that the seismic analysis software found more "bright spots" that may represent new reservoirs. Nothing "grew." What's there is there.
What's profitable and energy positive enough to matter? As always, it's never discussed in such articles. Why? Because nobody really knows. There's only one way to test profitability and energy return. Drill a hole in the ground and see.
Once again I need to indicate what is meant by the term reserves. The BP report refers to 2P reserves or those that are 50% likely to be produced economically. Over time technological improvements (eg: horizontal drilling and completions, underbalanced drilling and completions, etc.) as well as further appraisal and exploration drilling can move what was considered 3P (10% chance of being economic) to 2P and contingent resources (those thought to need a step change to become economic) to reserves (either 3P or 2P). The fact that reserves are being reported means that the "hole in the ground" has already been drilled indeed many holes in the ground prior to reserves being assessed.
Reserve growth has always referred to the continual movement of undiscovered resource to contingent resource and possible reserves to probable and proven reserves. No one has ever indicated that reserve growth was something magic happening in the reservoir other than the abiotic idiots.
For those of us in the industry this isn't anything that is out of line with our understanding. Whether or not various OPEC nations bumped up their reserves arbitrarily or whether they did so simply because OPEC changed the rules as to recognizing probable versus proven only reserves is something that remains to be seen. As I've posted years ago here the Saudi numbers actually make decent sense, the Kuwait numbers are harder to justify and there is not enough information available on Iraq to be definitive.
