Data

Oil proved reserves

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What you should know about this indicator

Estimates have been compiled using a combination of primary official sources, third-party data from the OPEC Secretariat, World Oil, Oil & Gas Journal and Chinese reserves based on official data and information in the public domain. Canadian oil sands 'under active development' are an official estimate. Venezuelan Orinoco Belt reserves are based on the OPEC Secretariat and government announcements. Reserves and R/P ratio for Canada includes Canadian oil sands. Reserves and R/P ratio for Venezuela includes the Orinoco Belt. Saudi Arabia's oil reserves include NGLs from 2017. Total proved reserves of oil are generally taken to be those quantities that geological and engineering information indicates with reasonable certainty can be recovered in the future from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions. The data series for total proved oil reserves does not necessarily meet the definitions, guidelines and practices used for determining proved reserves at company level, for instance as published by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, nor does it necessarily represent BP's view of proved reserves by country. Reserves-to-production (R/P) ratio: If the reserves remaining at the end of any year are divided by the production in that year, the result is the length of time that those remaining reserves would last if production were to continue at that rate. Reserves include gas condensate and natural gas liquids (NGLs) as well as crude oil.

Source
Energy Institute - Statistical Review of World Energy (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
June 20, 2024
Next expected update
June 2025
Date range
1980–2020
Unit
tonnes

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy analyses data on world energy markets from the prior year.

Retrieved on
June 20, 2024
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Energy Institute - Statistical Review of World Energy (2024).

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Citations

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To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Oil proved reserves”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) - “Energy”. Data adapted from Energy Institute. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-proved-reserves [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Energy Institute - Statistical Review of World Energy (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Energy Institute - Statistical Review of World Energy (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Oil proved reserves” [dataset]. Energy Institute, “Statistical Review of World Energy” [original data]. Retrieved December 23, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-proved-reserves