The US holds more oil reserves than any other nation in the world, including Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela. That conclusion comes from a new independent estimate from Rystad Energy, a Norwegian consultancy. Rystad estimates that America holds 264bn barrels of oil, more than half of which exists in the form of shale. That total exceeds the 256bn barrels found in Russia, and the 212bn barrels located in Saudi Arabia.
The findings go against conventional wisdom that Saudi Arabia and Venezuela hold the world’s largest oil reserves. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA), for example, pegs Venezuela’s oil reserves at 298bn barrels, the largest in the world. Rystad Energy says that these are inflated estimates because much of those reserves are not discovered. Instead, Rystad estimates that Venezuela only has about 95bn barrels, which includes its estimate for undiscovered oilfields.
For the US, more than 50% of the remaining oil reserves are in unconventional shale oil. Texas holds more than 60bn barrels of shale oil according to the new data.
New data from Rystad distinguishes between reserves in existing fields, in new projects and potential reserves in recent discoveries, and in yet undiscovered fields. An established standard approach is applied to all fields in all countries, Rystad said, which means reserves can be compared apples-to-apples across the world. Other public sources are based on official reporting from national authorities, which are in turn based on diverse and opaque standards, Rystad said.
