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Oil reserves to last just 21 years
By agencies
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Monday, 03 July 2006, 19:30 IST
NEW DELHI: India's oil reserves will last just 21 years. For China it's even worse with its crude reserves likely to last only 12 years.
The fate of the world's two fastest growing economies being sounded by UK-based global oil major BP Plc's 'Statistical Review of World Energy 2006, has also stated that countries like the US, Canada, Mexico, Algeria, Brazil and Angola will run out of oil in the next 10 to 20 years.
Saudi Arabia, which accounts for more than one-fifth of the world's total proven oil reserves of 1.29 trillion barrels, will have reserves enough for another 66 years.
On an average, if overall production continues at last year's pace, it is estimated that the world's proven oil reserves will last only 41 years. Major oil producing nations Iran and Iraq, which sit atop the world's second and third highest proven oil reserves, are the only two countries where oil reserves are expected to last over 100 years. It is 174 years for Iran and 106 years for Iraq.
Calculated by dividing the remaining reserves at the end of a year by the production in that year, BP Plc's data are based on the reserves-to-production (R/P) ratio, which represents the length of time remaining oil reserves will last if production were to continue at last year's level.
With global oil production (of 84 million barrels a day) declining on an average of 4-6 percent a year and demand growing at 2-3 percent annually, the R/P scenario is likely to get worse. Not to forget the fact that excess capacity held by OPEC nations has dwindled from an average of 30 percent to about 1 percent of global demand now.
This, however, is confronted with the likelihood of new oil discoveries in future, which would certainly arrest the trend.