World Oil Facts

Reserves/Production/Consumption

Oil Exporters / U.S. Oil Import Sources

Z magazine, November 2002

  Reserves (millions of barrels as of January 1, 2002):
Top 20 countries

  Saudi Arabia: 261,750
Iraq: 112,500
United Arab Emirates: 97,800
Kuwait: 96,500
Iran: 89,700
Venezuela: 77,685
Russia: 48,573
Libya: 29,500
Mexico: 26,941
Nigeria: 24,000
China: 24,000
United States: 22,045
Qatar: 15,207
Norway: 9,947
Algeria: 9,200
Brazil: 8,465
Oman: 5,506
Kazakhstan: 5,417
Angola: 5,412
Indonesia: 5,000

First 20 Countries: 975,148
Rest of the World: 56,983
World: 1,032,132

   Production (millions of barrels per day):
Top 20 Countries

 Saudi Arabia: 8.528
United States: 8.091
Russia: 7.014
Iran: 3.775
Mexico: 3.560
Norway: 3.408
China: 3.297
Venezuela: 3.137
Canada: 2.749
United Arab Emirates: 2.550
United Kingdom: 2.540
Iraq: 2.377
Nigeria: 2.223
Kuwait: 1.838
Brazil: 1.589
Algeria: 1.486
Libya: 1.427
Indonesia: 1.384
Oman: .964
Argentina: 825

First 20 countries: 62.762
Rest of the World: 12.464
World: 75.226
World Annual: 28,180 

   Consumption (Millions of barrels per day):
Top 20 Countries

 United States: 19.993
Japan: 5.423
China: 4.854
Germany: 2.814
Russia: 2.531
South Korea: 2.126
Brazil: 2.123
Canada: 2.048
France: 2.040
India: 2.011
Mexico: 1.932
Italy: 1.881
United Kingdom: 1.699
Spain: 1.465
SaudiArabia: 1.415
Iran: 1.109
Indonesia: 1.063
Netherlands: .881
Australia: .879
Taiwan: .846

First 20 Countries: 59.134
Rest of the World: 16.854
World: 75.988
World Annual: 28,460

Note: The estimation of reserves is fraught with politics and guesswork. The two annual industry benchmarks are compiled by World Oil and Oil and Cas Journal largely from data provided by individual countries. Both outfits have placed "proven" global reserves at about 1 trillion barrels for most of the last decade. In contrast, in 1995 PetroConsultants estimated "assessed" reserves at 746 billion barrels.

It's suspected that many OPEC countries pump-up their estimated reserves because their production quotas are based on the size of the reserves. In 1988 and 1990, many Middle Eastern countries revised their reserves upwards dramatically despite no major new discoveries. From 1986 to 1990, according to data from World Oil and Oil and Gas Journal, global reserves increased a staggering 39 percent from 708 billion barrels to 983 billion barrels.

From: www.eni.it/english/notizie/analisi/numeri energia/index. html

  Top World Oil Exporters (millions of barrels per day) - 2001

  Saudi Arabia: 7.38
Russia: 4.76
Norway: 3.22
Iran: 2.74
Venezuela: 2.60
United Arab Emirates: 2.09
Nigeria: 2.00
Iraq: 2.00
Kuwait: 1.80
Mexico: 1.65
Libya: 1.24
Algeria: 1.24

Sources of U.S. Oil Imports (millions of barrels per day) - 2001

Canada: 1.79
Saudi Arabia: 1.66
Venezuela: 1.54
Mexico: 1.42
Nigeria: .86
Iraq: .78
Norway: .33
Angola: .32
United Kingdom: .31

Total: 11.62

Source: Energy Information Administration

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