The Kingdom began to announce the reserves separately…
British Petroleum company (BP) raised its estimate of Saudi and US crude oil reserves at the end of last year by 12 percent and 22 percent, respectively, in its statistical review of the 2019 global energy sector, which is an industry reference. This represents the first major change to the Saudi estimated reserves since 1989.
The estimate of proved Saudi oil reserves changed to 297.7 billion barrels at the end of 2018 from 266.2 billion barrels last year, only slightly behind 303 billion in Venezuela, according to BP .
BP's chief economist, Spencer Dell, told reporters that the increase came after the kingdom began to declare reserves of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids separately.
Dell noted that natural gas liquids reserves were previously mentioned under gas reserves, resulting in a decline to 208.1 trillion cubic feet from 283.8 trillion cubic feet in 2017.
On the other hand, the report raised estimates of oil reserves of the United States, which became the largest producer in the world in 2018, to 61.2 billion barrels from 50 billion barrels by the end of 2017.
The world's total reserves remained unchanged at 1729.7 billion barrels, covering nearly 50 years of global demand at current rates.
According to BP benchmark 2019 Statistical Review of World Energy, BP revised certain Saudi gas reserves as oil. This granted Riyadh the opportunity to close in on top of Venezuela's spot as being the world's largest reserves holder.
With 168 billion barrels, Canada comes in the third place, followed by Iran with 156 billion barrels and Iraq with 147 billion barrels.
