BP "Statistical Review of World Energy 2012": ... ...Saudi Arabia now trails Venezuela with a 16 percent share of world proven oil reserves... ...Canada ranks third with 175.2 billion barrels, or 11 percent of total...

Venezuela World’s Largest Holder of Proven Oil Reserves

By Saudi Gazette:



JEDDAH –

Venezuela surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest holder of proven oil reserves, the BP "Statistical Review of World Energy 2012" said.

Saudi Arabia now trails Venezuela with a 16 percent share of world proven oil reserves, according to the report. Canada ranks third with 175.2 billion barrels, or 11 percent of total, unchanged from the revised number for 2010.

The South American country’s deposits were at 296.5 billion barrels at the end of last year, data from BP Plc show. Saudi Arabia held 265.4 billion barrels, BP report said. The 2010 estimate for Venezuela increased from 211.2 billion in the previous report.

"These reserves are quantified and certified by third parties and recognized by the entire world as being the biggest proven reserves of the world," Venezuela’s Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said today in Vienna. "We have always said that in the future the natural resources will become scarce and when the economy recovers and demand will come back then we will be one of the few countries able to respond to that."

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela wants to more than double the country’s oil- production capacity to 6 million barrels a day by 2019, according to a government plan released June 12. The world’s biggest oil-exporting nations faced a 15 percent slump in crude prices last month, the biggest decline since December 2008, on speculation Europe’s debt crisis would derail the global economic recovery.

Ramirez has said oil prices need to be higher than $100 a barrel. The recent slump in crude is dangerous for producers, the Oil Minister said June 12 in Vienna, where the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is meeting today to decide production quotas.

Brent futures fell 14 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $96.99 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange at 4:04 p.m. London time Friday.

Global reserves advanced to 1.65 trillion barrels at the end of last year, a 1.9 percent increase from a revised 1.62 trillion in 2010, BP said. Venezuela now holds 18 percent of the world’s reserves, according to BP data.

BP revised its estimates on reserves in part because the company publishes its report in June, before most governments issue their annual reserves figures, said Robert Wine, a BP spokesman. Last year’s record average oil price also had an effect, increasing the commercial viability of hard-to-reach deposits, he said.

Venezuela’s deposits may be difficult to extract, according to Strategic Energy & Economic Research. "People still know that a lot of that is very hard to develop and is not as readily accessible the way Saudi reserves are," Michael Lynch, the researcher’s president, said today in Vienna. "It’s the same with Canadian oil sands."

Russia boosted its deposits to 88.2 billion barrels from a revised 86.6 billion a year earlier, according to BP. Russia’s share of the total is 5.3 percent. Reserves in Norway increased last year, snapping 11 years of declines, according to BP. The country’s deposits rose to 6.9 billion barrels, compared with a revised figure of 6.8 billion in 2010.

BP said the estimates in the report are a combination of official sources, OPEC data and other third-party estimates. Deposits include gas condensates and natural-gas liquids, as well as crude.

Global oil consumption increased 0.7 percent or 0.6 million barrels a day to reach 88 million barrels a day in 2011, marking the weakest global growth rate among fossil fuels in BP’s statistical review. Oil consumption in member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, declined 1.2 percent to its lowest level since 1995, while oil consumption outside the OECD grew 2.8 percent in 2011, BP said.

"Despite strong oil prices, oil consumption growth was below average in producing regions of the Middle East and Africa due to regional unrest," the oil giant said.

China was the largest contributor to a rise in global oil demand growth in 2011, increasing its total oil demand by 505,000 barrels a day or 5.5 percent in 2011, although the growth rate was below its 10-year average, BP said. Meanwhile middle distillates were again the fastest-growing refined product category by volume, for the seventh time in the past 10 years, the oil major added.

In non-OPEC countries, output was broadly flat, with increases in the US, Canada, Russia and Colombia offsetting continued declines in mature areas such as the UK and Norway, as well as unexpected outages in a number of other countries. The US registered the largest increase among non-OPEC producers for the third consecutive year, driven by continued strong growth in onshore shale liquids output, which pushed US oil output to its highest level since 1998, BP said. – SG/Agencies

Published on Jun 19th 2012 at 9.35am

Source: Saudi Gazette

Venezuelanalysis

Apocalypse and oil

Franklin Johnston




Earth is the Lord's but a deep well opens Pandora's box!


April 20, 2010 is a date mankind may not forget. The day earth fought back! We had abused her; ravished forests, polluted waters, darkened her skies and on this day we pierced her mantle and oil gushed! She cried, "This is my blood, all the oil you desire!" BP replied, "No problem", but as it gushed even more, no man could staunch the flow and panic set it!

The earth confounded men of Congress, of business and science. But the men of oil had a solution - garbage! Let's plug the well with garbage! Garbage? "Yes, when in doubt try garbage!" This was Big Oil's best solution! And garbage it proved! The US was angry, the UK was miffed and said Obama should not blame them as BP was not British; shareholders bawled at lost dividends and we watched aghast as the world's wise men scurried about like headless cocks. We trusted them to dig a proper well; they did not! But, as this will not be the last deep well, can we trust them with the next one? God only knows!

The Macondo well is not the beginning of the end, but it may be the beginning of wisdom. Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible drill rig leased by BP Plc (a UK-registered company with offices in London) until 2013, at some US$500k a day, bored a hole six miles into the earth's crust - almost to the mantle, to find oil to feed our lust and their greed. The wreck now lies a mile down on the ocean floor. The insurance claim was settled, owners are happy, but three million gallons of crude oil still gush into the ocean each day and they can't stop it. Mother Earth is taking revenge! What will deeper wells bring?

For millennia man lived in harmony with earth and respected it as the sustainer of life. Jewish stories in the Bible say, "Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth..." The result? There are now seven billion mouths to feed! We multiply but we do not replenish, replant or restore; we harvest, but do not rest or restock the species and now we drill this bleeding wound in the Gulf of Mexico! When did we lose respect for Mother Earth?

In the last three centuries man has been an arrogant know-it-all! We know a bit about earth, gravity, our body; split the atom, went to the moon and mapped the human genome. We now have a cocky certainty about things where the ancients were cautious and respectful; we will soon programme our Sat Nav to locate God! Will Armageddon come from the sea? Not by demons, evil men, nuclear bombs, global warming, Bin Laden or poverty, but by simple businessmen. BP opened Pandora's box and a haemorrhage of oil can end life as we know it! Scary! It is so like God to confound prophets and priests. What if hell is our own earth saturated with oil and ignited by the spontaneous combustion of the sun? "No more water - the fire next time?" And why not? Who knows God's mind? God is God, consults no one, gives or destroys life at will! Those "not chosen" are also His and He used them to destroy His son, Jerusalem His city, and enslave His "chosen people". God makes rules and is not bound by them! You pray and expect God's help. Guess what? God answered your prayer, but not as you wished it; you are not in the picture or even part of the solution - tough! Do we limit God's end time to a Jewish story about beasts with four heads? Can the issue of oil be His Armageddon? Only God knows God's mind; this is why God is God! As humans, we must care for the earth and get on with living!

Some time ago, a small Australian undersea well gushed for two months and polluted waters as far as East Timor, so when the massive Macondo well blew I encouraged Jamaica to get involved. Why? We are all joined at the hip! Consider this scenario:

*The oceans are one body of water, given various names by Europe's explorers; if you urinate at Whitehouse beach it eventually reaches Europe, Africa and Asia thanks to the Gulf Stream, Benguela, Agulhas and Humboldt currents.

*Mankind is one, and Europe's proto scientists labelled people by phenotype (mainly colour) as so-called races, after characters (Ham, Shem) in Bible stories. Conclusion? One people breathe one air, live on one earth, beside one sea. If Apocalypse by oil continues, progressive pollution of the Caribbean, Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans means marine life will die. Pollution from the coast inland means as crops and potable water fail we all die! Extreme and not pretty, but species have died out before! So what are the less atavistic implications of Macondo and other deep wells to come?

* If oil gushes to year end the damage may be US$1t and life as we know it will not return to some areas. Who heard the last dinosaur scream? The full is hard to bear!

*The impact on land and marine ecosystems may mean loss of use, plant, animal, sealife, birds and micro-organisms we know so little about - all priceless!

* First, the economy, quality of life, tourism, etc, of Gulf states will be hard hit. In stage 2, Central, South America and the Caribbean will suffer, and stage 3 will kick in when the ocean currents circulate the crude oil globally - possible global disaster! The earth lived with Krakatoa, tsunami, earthquake, storm, Eyjafjoll, all natural disasters and it recovered. Bhopal was man-made, and thousands were killed and maimed with little global impact. BP's incision in the earth's mantle is different. It may affect all on earth!

But we are not yet at worst case; so what can we learn from Macondo?

*We do not know as much as we think we do; so we should respect earth and be cautious.

*God - however you conceive Him - may intervene in the world, but we can't predict the outcome for man as our agenda is not His and we may not be part of His solution.

*The environment must be our priority. We must apply pressure on ourselves, business and government to do right by our earth. We came, it was here and it's all we have!

*Truly "no man is an island". If the US and China pollute the air it is our air; if men dynamite fish and cut down our forests to burn coal, if Caricom accepts "payola" and votes to destroy whales, they threaten our earth! Let's oppose them all! The Gulf gusher may not be the Apocalypse, but "take sleep and mark death", my friend.

Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants, currently on assignment in the UK.

franklinjohnston@hotmail.com

July 02, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International