Thanks to whoever pointed us to this data.
a. According to this, the total amount of global oil reserves "grew" by just about 1% during the past year, this despite pumping approximately 2% of the supposed 2004 reserves. We figured from other sources the other day that the "discoveries" last year were about 8gb or about .6%, so this means the "reserve growth", the amount of oil that magically appeared out of nowhere was about 2.4% give or take. This amounts to 29gb, so it's an impressive amount.
b. Based on this, the following countries are screwed: Australia, Norway, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand. Australia's reserves decreased by 57% year over year.
c. Based on this, the following countries are in great shape: Nigeria, Libya, Peru, Brazil. Gotta wonder about Nigeria reporting a 41% increase in reserves.
d. The following countries have some 'splainin' to do: Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Uzbekistan, Oman, Syria. Despite having big decreases in production, their alleged reserves stayed the same or increased. Particularly alarming is Oman, 7.4% decrease in production (despite really high prices) but no admitted decrease in reserves, despite being widely believed to be in depletion. Phillipines 10% decrease in production, no change in supposed reserves.
e. I built a spreadsheet in which you take the 2004 reserves, subtract the 2004 production, and compare that to the 2005 reserves, so as to be able to compare the net change in supposed reserves for the individual countries, to accommodate reserves growth plus discoveries. Here are the top dozen or so, and the amount the reserves were supposed to have grown:
- Code: Select all
RG+Disc
Nigeria 11113
Libya 3566
Russia 3267
Kuwait 3248
Saudi 3194
Brazil 2644
Iran 1438
China 1275
US 1185
Algeria 936
Canada 798
Iraq 756
Abu Dhabi 714
Peru 697
UK 500
f. The US did not come out as badly in this analysis as it could have. It pumped 9% of its 2004 reserves, but net reserves decreased by only 3%, therefore discoveries and reserves growth of about 6% offset most of this, or it would have been in the "screwed" column.
g. The estimate for China included zero change in reserves, despite pumping at a rate of about 7% of their 2004 total. Evidently, discoveries kept exact pace with demand in this lucky nation.
h. Evidently this is the case all over. 84 of the 105 countries in this report were estimated to have no change, either way, in reserves between the two years, despite supposedly pumping as much as they could last year.
Presumably tar sands. A bit misleading.
