Oil reserves

As oil reserves natural accumulations of petroleum-containing minerals and rocks are referred to in geology. Oil reservoirs, however, refer to occurrences in which the reduction can be carried out economically. Development and exploration of oil deposits also unconventional way as oil sands, oil shale and bitumen affect, among other political and economic factors, the price of oil and therefore the oil-dependent economies of the industrialized countries.

Due to technical limitations it can currently only a small part of the oil reserves, mostly conventional oil, be encouraged. With rising oil price is also worth mining less attractive deposits. Due to technical progress, as well as better and cheaper mining methods to be exploitable oil deposits deposits. The petroleum constant or " constancy of range " means something humorous to note that the remaining static range has not changed much of oil in the last decades.

Global oil reserves

The world's oil reserves can be calculated in different ways.

" Same reserve estimates a little someone who is meant to describe blindfolded the appearance of an elephant, which he touched on some points. "

Various forms of reserves

The estimation of reserves of an oil field takes place at the time of its discovery by the geologist and engineer. On these "initial reserves" based on sale price of the deposit, the investment for their development and the value of a production company. This first estimate is very uncertain, because different reviews can despite the same data base divergent calculate reserves - and not so much due to lack of technology, but rather because of the financial sums that are in the game. For 1988, the estimated U.S. oil company Triton (now Amerada Hess) the potential of the newly discovered Colombian oil field Cuisana to three billion barrels. The news of this relatively large amount of neugefundenem oil drove up the share price. After BP had started with the exploitation, a re-examination, however, promised to only 1.5 billion barrels. Experts from the ASPO ( Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas ) estimate the reserves today only to only 800 million barrels. After an oil field was once discovered, arise depending upon extrapolation different values ​​for the yet to be discovered reserves.

• The first value is " proved reserves" or F95. It describes the amount of oil that can be promoted with today's means with a probability of 95%. The definition of " proven reserves " varies considerably from state to state. So it is common in the United States to honor only those reserves as proved, which are in contact with the sponsoring holes. So this is a conservative estimate, however, makes it possible to increase the reserves by simply tapping a known source for decades. Conversely, classified Saudi Arabia as proved reserves including those who are not yet exploited. From Venezuela, it is assumed that there are parts of unconventional reserves, such as bitumen from the Orinoco in its conventional reserves with into account.
• The second value is " probable reserves " or F50 and describes the amount of oil that can be promoted with a probability of 50%.
• The third value is " possible reserves " or F5. This is the amount of oil, their promotion only with a very high acceptance rate, which justifies the investment, is possible. The chance to promote this oil is 5%.

For Algeria, for example, is 1.7 billion barrels F95, F50 comes to 6.9 billion barrels, and F5 gives even 16.3 billion barrels. These probabilities are used, especially in third world countries whose currencies depend mainly on the export of raw materials, among other things, to evaluate the financial strength of a country. Governments and banks usually use an average of these three values ​​; in the case of Algeria, these are 7.7 billion barrels. The opportunity for the discovery of such sets is therefore less than 50 %. Oil-producing countries are very sensitive to the issue of reserves. Thus, the Russian parliament in 2002 passed a law requiring the betrayal of the true Russian oil reserves could face up to seven years in prison. The above various estimates can be justified with the fact that there are different varieties of petroleum.

• Conventional crude oil (95 % of what has been promoted )
• Unconventional oil: oil shale
• Oil sands
• Crude oil, which can not be funded with current technology.

On the situation of conventional and unconventional deposits of oil and natural gas on Earth → see oil production.

Questioning of outstanding reserves

1985 decided the OPEC countries (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries ) to link their production rates to the respective reserves; Who could have high reserves, could promote more and vice versa. What at first was considered to be a wise decision, however, provoked a general artificial increase in the reserves of the Member States, as each higher production quotas wanted to get at a high price. An increase in the reserves allows the States concerned also to get higher and low-interest loans. This was for example the reason why Iraq 's reserves increased in 1983, when he was in the first Gulf war against Iran.

A total of 779 billion barrels were issued as reserves, of which 317.54 billion barrels doubtful. From the table, the following three primary assumptions can be read

Development of oil deposits

Most oil deposits were found in the 1960s. But even after that until 1980 every year more new conventional oil reserves of crude oil were discovered as the world's promoted and was consumed. The significance of the trend of declining discoveries is reduced by the unconventional oil reserves resulting from higher oil prices increasingly economically recoverable something. However, to deal with, however, environmental threats such as increased CO2 emissions, local devastation and water consumption associated. It thus opens a gap between the oil flow and the conventional oil, which year after year is newly found. It was by some, therefore, a final oil crisis fears because of an increasing demand for oil from supernatants in a future strongly decreasing supply.