Problems of oil and natural gas fuels use.

Oil plays an important role in the global energy balance, accounted for 32% of energy

consumption in 2010. This proportion has changed very little in the last 20 years (the figure was 37% in 1990), despite the fact that the total amount of energy consumed worldwide has increased by more than 50% over the same period. This trend has been driven primarily in the last decade by emerging countries.

At regular points the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook throughout these two decades, questions have been raised about the growing scarcity of fossil fuel resources and the imminent inevitability of peak oil.

- So what is the status of oil reserves in 2013?

- What have been the major trends of the past two decades?

- What can we expect to happen in the near future?

The trend in oil reserves between 1991 and 2011

Different sources regularly quoted as benchmarks estimate current global oil reserves at

1,650 billion barrels or Gb (BP Statistical Review). Despite high levels of consumption that have been growing by 32 % since 1991 - from 66 Mbd (million barrels per day) in 1991 to 88 Mbd in 2011 - reserves have increased by 60% over the same period, representing a gain of 620 Gb.

Given cumulative consumption of the same order (595 Gb), this means that new discoveries and reappraisals have totaled 1,210 Gb since 1991, which is a large amount by any measure. This explains why the reserves-to-production ratio has increased from 43 to 54 years.

Every region of the world outside Europe saw its oil reserves increase between 1991 and

2011. Those of South America (19.7% of the total), Africa (8%) and the CIS (7.7%). The trend for other regions varied from 7% for North America (13.2% of total as a result of the Canada effect) to 20% for the Middle East (48.1%) and 12% for Asia (2.5%). Europe (0.9%).

The increasing importance of South America, whose contribution to total reserves has risen from 7% to nearly 20%, has reduced the influence of the Middle East on the global oil stage. It is true that this region still contains nearly half of the world’s oil reserves, but this represents a significant reduction from the 1990s, when the figure was 64%.

On the other hand, one parameter of particular market sensitivity that has changed very little is the dominant role played by OPEC, which still accounts for more than 70% of the world’s total reserves, since its members include the two ‘heavyweights’ of Venezuela (17.9%) and Saudi Arabia (16.1%). Four other Middle Eastern states - Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates - together hold 30% of global oil reserves.

Figure 1 - Breakdown of 2011 discoveries by type of deposit

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 984