Top Ten Oil reserves-- the latest

This is a map from 2003-2004, click on it to see it larger.

I last wrote about this issue in April 2007 here.

I also wrote about this before we invaded Iraq, but it's in a creative non-fiction genre called "Technicolor Yawn" and that story is pretty long and covers a lot of personal territory as well. Same goes for "No Place".

For up to date info, I found this blog with some details. I noticed that where Iraq used to be #2 (before we invaded) it has fallen down a few notches and now Iran is in the #3 spot, where it used to be #6 according to the map above.

I am liberally quoting below from the blog linked above which is in turn quoting from the EIA which is the official energy statistics from the US government. Uh, I may have messed up and put 2008 below instead of 2009 but it hasn't changed all that much in that time period.

"Petroleum - Billion Barrels
1. Saudi Arabia - 266.75 (20.03%)
2. Canada - 178.59 (13.41%)
3. Iran - 138.40 (10.39%)
4. Iraq - 115.00 (8.64%)
5. Kuwait - 104.00 (7.81%)
6. United Arab Emirates - 97.80 (7.34%)
7. Venezuela - 87.04 (6.54%)
8. Russian Federation - 60.00 (4.51%)
9. Libya - 41.46 (3.11%)
10. Nigeria - 36.22 (2.72%)

Notes: The world total of proved reserves is 1,331.70 billion barrels of petroleum. The total of the top ten countries makes up 84.50% of the world's proved reserves. Canada's proved reserves are estimated to be 5.4 billion barrels of conventional crude oil and 173.2 billion barrels of oil sands reserves. (Oil sands are much more costly to refine than conventional crude oil.)


Natural Gas - Trillion Cubic Feet
1. Russian Federation - 1,680.000 (27.16%)
2. Iran - 948.200 (15.33%)
3. Qatar - 905.300 (14.64%)
4. Saudi Arabia - 253.107 (4.09%)
5. United Arab Emirates - 214.400 (3.47%)
6. United States - 211.085 (3.41%)
7. Nigeria - 183.990 (2.97%)
8. Venezuela - 166.260 (2.69%)
9. Algeria - 159.000 (2.57%)
10. Iraq - 111.940 (1.81%)

Notes: The world total of proved reserves is 6,185.694 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The total of the top ten countries makes up 78.14% of the world's proved reserves. Venezuela moved past Algeria into the 8th spot for the 2008 listing, having been listed 9th last year."

Unfortunately, Sheryl and I are, from time to time, made painfully aware of man's inhumanity to man. As I recall, shortly before we invaded Afghanistan, there were quite a few news stories about "human rights abuses" in that country. Of course, the official story was that we were invading because that country was harboring a terrorist. Well, if we thought that terrorist was in France, would we invade and conquer France? What if France said, "We don't know what you're talking about-- we're not harboring anybody" because, in essence that's what the government of Afghanistan was answering us with. Our response was invasion. Well, the combined powers of all the US government forces did not find the guy, but we did manage to get to work on a natural gas pipeline . " The US will be dismayed as its oil and gas company UNOCAL's efforts to pass gas pipeline from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan had been delayed because India and Pakistan have opted to sign an accord with Iran, analysts say." (2006).

Brief note about Iraq; we never found weapons of mass destruction, and Colin Powell resigned over it. He's the guy who said, before the invasion "You break it, you buy it." Pretty expensive, isn't it?

Notice from the map how secure US military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq are pretty conveniently located on either side of Iran. We've got them surrounded. Now, the presidential candidate who did not get elected was the one caught on tape singing "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran" so I have high hopes that perhaps Barack Obama will be able to change our foreign policies and our energy policy away from war, and towards something far more productive, less costly in human lives and suffering, and sustainable into the future.