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Oil Reserves 2022

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Oil Reserves by Country 2024

Crude oil is the world’s main source of fuel and largest overall source of primary energy. In 2020, the world used approximately 88.6 million barrels per day of oil, which amounted to 30.1% of the world's primary energy. Crude oil creates gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, asphalt, tar, and lubrication oils. "Oil reserves" is an estimate of the amount of not-yet-mined crude oil located in a particular country that can be recovered with current technology and at a cost that is financially feasible in relation to the current price of oil.

The United States is the world's foremost producer of oil, as well as the world's largest consumer of oil, which makes it necessary for the U.S. to import additional oil from dozens of other oil-producing countries. Despite its world-leading oil production, the United States is only 9th in the world in terms of available oil reserves:

Top 10 Countries with the Largest Oil Reserves (in thousand million barrels):

Country
Oil Reserves 2022
Venezuela303,221
Saudi Arabia267,192
Iran208,600
Iraq145,019
United Arab Emirates113,000
Kuwait101,500
Russia80,000
United States55,251
Libya48,363
Nigeria36,967

How the accessibility of oil reserves impacts profitability

Venezuela has the largest amount of oil reserves in the world with more than 300 billion barrels in reserve. Saudi Arabia has the second-largest amount of oil reserves in the world with 297.5 billion barrels. Despite Venezuela’s massive supply of natural resources, the country still struggles economically. Venezuela and Saudi Arabia have populations of comparable size; however, Saudi Arabia’s economy is twice as large. One of the main reasons for this disparity is the accessibility of each country's oil reserves.

Although Venezuela has the most oil reserves in the world, most of its oil is offshore or far underground and is considered to be dense. As such, the cost of extracting the oil in Venezuela’s reserves using the technology currently available is too high to be profitable. Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves, on the other hand, are close to the surface and on land, which makes the oil much more accessible and the extraction process vastly more cost-effective. This, in turn, makes Saudi Arabia's oil sector significantly more profitable.

Notes:
- Different sources include different classes of oil reserves (for instance, some may exclude shale oil or tar sands oil) or have different definitions of "proven" oil reserves. This can lead to disparities between estimates from different sources.
- The most notable of these disparities is Canada, whose estimated reserves change greatly depending upon whether the source is OPEC (2022 data below) or BP (2020 data below).

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Country
Oil Reserves 2022 (Million Barrels)
Oil Reserves 2020 (Million Barrels)
Venezuela303,221303,800
Saudi Arabia267,192297,500
Iran208,600157,800
Iraq145,019145,000
United Arab Emirates113,00097,800
Kuwait101,500101,500
Russia80,000107,800
United States55,25168,800
Libya48,36348,400
Nigeria36,96736,900
Kazakhstan30,00030,000
China27,00326,000
Qatar25,24425,200
Brazil13,24211,900
Algeria12,20012,200
Ecuador8,2731,300
Norway7,5737,900
Azerbaijan7,0007,000
Mexico5,5586,100
Oman5,3735,400
Sudan5,0001,500
Canada4,731168,100
Vietnam4,4004,400
India4,3704,500
Malaysia3,6002,700
Egypt3,3003,100
Argentina2,8382,500
Angola2,5507,800
Syria2,5002,500
Indonesia2,2502,400
Colombia2,0402,000
Gabon2,0002,000
DR Congo1,811
Australia1,8032,400
United Kingdom1,8002,500
Equatorial Guinea1,1001,100
Brunei1,1001,100
Turkmenistan600600
Uzbekistan594600
Ukraine395
Denmark340400
Belarus198
Chile150
Thailand300
Yemen3,000
Peru700
Romania600
Chad1,500
Tunisia400
South Sudan3,500
Republic of the Congo2,900
Trinidad and Tobago200
Total1,550,0491,723,600
showing: 52 rows

Which country has the most oil reserves?

Venezuela has the most oil reserves in the world, 303.8. This accounts for 17.5% of the world's total oil reserves.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources