Réserves pétrolières

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Les réserves pétrolières désignent la partie des champs de pétrole découverts qui sont exploitables avec les contraintes économique et technologique actuelles.

Le pétrole présent dans le sol se constitue « réserve » lorsqu'il est exploitable économiquement, car au plus on extrait du pétrole au plus son coût de récupération augmente. Le facteur de récupération est le pourcentage de pétrole présent (estimé) qui est récupérable en tenant compte d'un certain nombre de conditions.^[1]

[modifier] L'histoire

Entre 1859 et 1968, la consommation totale d'huile fut de 200 milliards de baril (31 km³). En 2006, alors que les prix approchent les sommets records de 1980 (après modulation dû à l'inflation), la consommation mondiale approche les 30 milliards de baril par an.^[2]

Avec la montée du prix du baril de brut, un grand nombre de produits dérivés du pétrole vont être plus coûteux à produire comme par exemple le gasoil, les lubrifiants, les matières plastiques, les pneus, les enrobés, les textiles synthétiques et bien d'autres. La science n'a toujours pas trouvé d'alternative abordable à ces produits, même lorsque le prix du baril est au dessus des 50$.

[modifier] Catégories et définitions

Proven, probable and possible reserves are the three most common categories of reserves. They represent the certainty that a reserve exists based on the geologic and engineering data and interpretation for a given location. The international authority for reserves definitions is generally the Society of Petroleum Engineers. La Securities and Exchange Commission has, in recent years, demanded that oil companies with exchange listed stock adopt reserves accounting standards that are consistent with conservative industry practice. In a notable case, Shell was required to write down the value of its oil reserves for 2001 and 2002 based on application of more strict definitions of reserves categories.

Oil reserves are a primarily a measure of geological risque — of the probabilité of oil existing and being producible under current economic conditions using current technology. The three categories of reserves generally used are proven, probable, and possible reserves.

[modifier] Réserves prouvées

defined as oil and gas "Reasonably Certain" to be producible using current technology at current prices, with current commercial terms and government consent, also known in the industry as 1P. Some Industry specialists refer to this as P90, i.e., having a 90% certainty of being produced.

[modifier] Réserves probables

defined as oil and gas "Reasonably Probable" of being produced using current or likely technology at current prices, with current commercial terms and government concent. Some Industry specialists refer to this as P50, i.e., having a 50 % certainty of being produced. This is also known in the industry as 2P or Proven plus probable.

[modifier] Réserves possibles

i.e., "having a chance of being developed under favourable circumstances". Some Industry specialists refer to this as P10, i.e., having a 10 % certainty of being produced. This is also known in the industry as 3P or Proven plus probable plus possible.

[modifier] Réserves pétrolières mondiales

It has been estimated that there was initially a total of 2,050 (Colin Campbell, 2005) to 2,390 gigabarrels (380 km³) of crude oil sur Terre, of which, depending upon which estimate is used, about 45% to 70% has been used so far. According to the 2006 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, from the years 1965-2005 approximately 917,558,609,280 barrels of oil were produced globally.[1]

The World Energy Resources Program of the United States Geological Survey produces the official estimates of the world oil resources for the Gouvernement fédéral des États-Unis. They estimate that the remaining world oil reserves are about 1,000 gigabarils, and current estimates place the exhaustion of the remaining known reserves within the next 50 years. Estimates of undiscovered reserves range widely from 275 to 1,469 gigabarils (44 to 234 km³). (It should be noted that one barrel equals 42 US gallons, or 158,97 litres.) The Moyen-Orient has about 50% of the known remaining world oil reserves. L’USGS estimates the total reserves are about three times the known amount.

There are margins of uncertainty concerning the actual size of proven oil reserves. [2] Presumably for political reasons, some nations have not allowed audits of the size of their fields. This is especially true of Moyen-Orient members of OPEP, as well as nations that belonged to the URSS. OPEC limits the amount of oil output a member nation can produce to a portion of the remaining reserves, giving an incentive to manipulate the data. Par exemple, en 1985 le Koweït increased the estimated size of their oil fields by 50%, which allowed them to increase their output. Other member nations quickly followed suit. The Saudi national oil company controls the largest amount of proven oil reserves in the world.

Some estimates, such as the USGS, predict that oil reserves will become economically unrecoverable by the 2050s. However, these numbers are open to debate as they include only reserves that are presently in development or considered economically recoverable. They do not include sable bitumineux and bitumen, nor do they take into account possible coal-derived production, methane extraction from waste, le recyclage des Pneumatiques, or recycled plastics. Estimates also do not include any reserves in Antarctique, which is protected from exploration by environmental treaties. Although none of these sources are currently economical, they could be used to produce significant quantities of hydrocarbures in the future, and they may become important as crude oil production dwindles, or if new technology makes them easier to recover. Higher crude oil prices also make these sources more attractive; industry observers believe that sustained prices above $40/bbl will provide the incentive and retour sur investissement to make previously undesirable oil deposits economically viable.

Réserves pétrolières[3]	fin 1985	fin1995	fin 2004	fin 2005
	en milliard de baril	en milliard de baril	en milliard de baril	en milliard de tonne	en milliard de baril	% du total	Ratio R/P (année)
TOTAL MONDIAL	770,4	1027,0	1194,1	163,6	1200,7	100,0%	40,6
Parts de l'OCDE	118,6	111,3	81,8	10,6	80,6	6,7%	11,2
OPEC	535,8	785,1	897,4	123,2	902,4	75,2%	73,1
Hors OPEC et ex-URSS	172,0	179,8	175,8	23,5	175,4	14,6%	13,6
Ancienne Union soviétique	62,7	62,1	120,9	16,8	122,9	10,2%	28,4
Voir le tableau complet par pays

[modifier] Reserve Booking

Oil and gas reserves are the main asset of an oil company. Booking is the process by which they are added to the Balance sheet. This is done according to a set of rules developed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). The Reserves of any company listed on the New York Stock Exchange — which in practice means virtually every commercial company in the world — have to be stated to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In many cases these reported reserves are audited by external geologists, although this is not a legal requirement. The Securities and Exchange Commission rejects the probability concept and prohibits companies from mentioning probable and possible reserves in their filings. Thus, official estimates of proven reserves will always be understated compared to what oil companies think actually exists. For practical puposes companies will use proven plus probable estimate (2P), and for long term planning they will be looking primarily at possible reserves

Other countries also have their national hydrocarbon reserves authorities (for example the GKZ, State reserves commission of Russie) where companies operating in these countries have to report.

Other types of risk also exist: economic risk, technological risk, and political risk. Economic risk is the probability that the oil exists but cannot be produced at current prices and costs. There is a vast quantity of oil in this category, so economists will always be more optimistic than geologists. Technological risk is the probability that the oil exists but cannot be produced using existing technology. Again, there is a great deal of oil and near-oil in this category, such as the world's schiste bitumineux deposits. And political risk is the risk that oil exists but cannot be produced because political conditions prevent it. Since most of the world's oil is in politically unstable countries, political risk is usually the biggest risk and the most difficult to quantify.

An example of technology increasing reserves is the recent increase of Canadian oil reserves from 5 to 179 gigabarrels, moving Canada to second place in world oil reserves. There is no geological risk in the Canadian oil sands — their existence has been known for centuries. The change occurred because of the learning curve combined with technologie de rupture. Under heavy cost pressure, companies reduced their production costs from $30 per barrel to $10/bbl. Meanwhile, the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority developed a new process called steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) to recover the deeper oil sands. At the same time, improvements in directional drilling technology made drilling horizontal SAGD wells much cheaper. At the end of it all, the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (AEUB) plugged new numbers into its simulations informatiquess and with the stroke of a keyboard, quadrupled North American proven oil reserves. No new oil had been found, some potential reserves had just reached an economic and technological tipping point.

[modifier] North and South American reserves

[modifier] Canada

Alberta's proven oil reserves in recent years have been raised from total conventional oil reserves of around 5 gigabarrels, to the much larger figure of around 180 gigabarrels which includes les sables bitumineux de l'Athabasca [3] deposit, placing Canada second only to Arabie saoudite. Other estimates (BP Statistical Review of World Energy) place Canada's petroleum reserves in the 17 gigabaril range, by only counting oil sands under development. Although Alberta contains about 75% of Canadian conventional oil reserves, most of the other provinces and territories, especially Saskatchewan and offshore Newfoundland, hold significant production and reserves [4].

Estimates des réserves de sable bitumineux can be misleading because oil sands contain a semisolid form of oil known as bitume. Companies only book oil sands as proven reserves after they finish a strip mine or thermal facility to extract them and an upgrader to convert them to pétrole brut de synthèse (syncrude). On the other hand, the Alberta government bases its reserve estimates on drilling cores and wireline logs from 19,000 wells drilled in the oil sands. Alberta uses the term "crude bitumen" rather than "crude oil" and refers to "established reserves" rather than "proven reserves" to differentiate them from oil company estimates. These estimates did not attract much attention until the prestigous Oil and Gas Journal added them to its estimates of Canada's proven oil reserves, which quadrupled North American reserves at the stroke of a key. Alberta production and Canadian exports are steadily increasing despite the fact that Alberta's conventional oil reserves are almost exhausted.

When oil prices were low, oil sands companies such as Suncor Energy and Syncrude reduced their costs to around US $15/bbl. As a result, the oil price increases of 2004-2006 to over $75/bbl is high enough to cause over $100 billion worth of oil sands projects to be planned and initiated. Alberta oil sands production in 2005 was around 0.4 gigabarrels per year. It is expected to rise to 0.7 gigabarrels per year or 67% of Albertan production by 2010. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers predicts that by 2020, Canadian oil production will be 1.75 gigabarrels per year, of which only 10% will be conventional light and medium crude oil.

The most serious constraint on future development is an historically unprecedented labor and housing shortage in Alberta as a whole and Fort McMurray in particular. According to Statistics Canada, by septembre 2006 unemployment rates in Alberta had fallen to record low levels, lower than any other Canadian province or U.S. state, ^[4] and per-capita incomes had risen to double the Canadian average. In a global context Alberta's economic growth rate was second only to China's.

[modifier] États-Unis

Les United States proven oil reserves declined to a little more than 21 gigabarrels by the end of 2004 according to the Energy Information Administration, a 46% decline from the 39 gigabarrels it had in 1970 when the huge Alaska North Slope ('ANS') reserves were booked. Since there have been millions of oil wells drilled in the US and there is nowhere left for an elephant the size of ANS to remain hidden, it appears that US oil reserves are on a permanent downward slide. As oil fields get closer to the end of production, estimates of what is left become more accurate. Consequently, US oil reserve numbers are very accurate compared those of other countries.

La producion de pétrole production peaked fin 1970 at over 4 gigabarrels per year, but declined to 1.8 gigabarrels per year by early 2006. In fact, production in the fall of 2005 fell to only 1.5 gigabarrels per year as a result of ouragans dans le golfe du Mexique — a level not seen since shortly après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. At the same time, US consumption of petroleum products increased to over 7.3 gigabarrels par an. The difference was mostly made up by imports, with the largest supplier being Canada, which increased its exports of crude oil and refined products to the US to 0.8 gigabarrels per year at the end of 2005. Imports of oil and products now account for nearly half of the US trade deficit.

With the shut-in of the supergiant Prudhoe Bay oil field for pipeline repairs in August 2006, the immediate future looks even worse since Alaska production will be cut in half and total U.S. production by 8%. BP, the operator of Prudhoe Bay, has refused to predict when the pipeline will be able to resume operation.

The United States has the largest known concentration of schiste bitumineux in the world, according to the Bureau of Land Management and holds an estimated 800 gigabarrels of recoverable oil, enough to meet U.S. demand for oil at current levels for 110 years. Oil shale is developable given high enough oil prices, and the technology for converting oil shale to oil has been known since the middle ages.

However, the main constraint on oil shale development is probably going to be that Albertan oil sands are only about half as expensive to produce, and the US has full access to oil sands production under the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA. In addition, there are environmental concerns about oil shale development. The oil shale areas are semi-arid, in which mine scars last for centuries, and are at the headwaters of several important rivers, notably the Powder River in a region in which water rights are very important. By contrast, the Alberta oil sands are in a largely uninhabited taïga that is periodically destroyed par des feux de forêt, and the rivers are very large and flow into the océan Arctique. As a result, the oil shales are probably not going to see development until oil sands production is well underway.

[modifier] Mexique

While the government of Mexique claims it has over 100 gigabarrels of oil, as of January, 2006, the prestigious Oil and Gas Journal estimated its proven reserves at only 12.9 gigabarrels. The reason for the discrepancy is that, while the oil may exist in theory, in practice, politics prevents it from being developed. La constitution du Mexique donne à la société pétrolière d’État, la PEMEX, le monopole de la production pétrolière, and the Mexican government treats Pemex as a major source of revenue, taking 60% of its revenues in taxes, according to Business Week on 13 Dec 2004. As a result, Pemex has insufficient capital to develop the resources on its own, and cannot take on foreign partners to supply money and technology it lacks.

Depuis 1979, le Mexique has produced most of its oil from the supergiant Cantarell Field, which is the second-biggest field in the world by production, but which has recently peaked and started a terminal production decline. In 1997, PEMEX started a massive nitrogen injection project to maintain oil flow, which now consumes half the azote produced in the world, but this largely just accelerates depletion rather than adding new reserves.

As for its other fields, 40% of Mexico's remaining reserves are in the Chicontepec Field, which was found in 1926, but which has remained undeveloped because the oil is trapped in impermeable rock. The remainder of Mexico's fields are much smaller, much more expensive to develop, and contain heavy oil that buyers do not want. As a result of concentrating on its one good oil field and ignoring everything else, Mexico's proven reserves have fallen every year for more than a decade, and it has less than 10 years worth of oil reserves at current production levels.

[modifier] Venezuela

According to the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Venezuela has 77.2 billion barrels of proven conventional oil reserves, the largest of any country in the Western Hemisphere. In addition it has non-conventional oil deposits similar in size to Canada's - at 1,200 billion barrels approximately equal to the world's reserves of conventional oil. About 267 billion barrels of this may be producible at current prices using current technology. [5] Venezuela's Orinoco tar sands are less viscous than Canada's sables bitumineux de l'Athabasca – meaning they can be produced by more conventional means, but are buried deeper – meaning they cannot be extracted by surface mining. In an attempt to have these extra heavy oil reserves recognized by the international community, Venezuela has moved to add them to its conventional reserves to give nearly 350 billion barrels of total oil reserves. This would give it the largest oil reserves in the world, even ahead of Saudi Arabia.

Venezuela’s development of its non-conventional oil reserves is mainly limited by political unrest. Fin 2002 et début 2003 a strike at the state oil company PDVSA resulted in a dramatic drop in Venezuelan oil production and the firing of most of the oil company’s workers. This has significantly limited its ability to develop and produce oil and in 2006 reports indicated that Venezuela was having to buy oil from Russie to meet its sales commitments to other countries. Venezuela claims its oil production is around 3 million barrels per day, but oil industry analysts and the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimate it to be closer to 2.6 million barrels per day. It is difficult to verify actual production because PDVSA has stopped filing reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as required as owner of the Citgo gasoline chain. [6] Notwithstanding that, Venezuela continues to be the second or third largest supplier of oil to the United States, with 2/3 of its oil exports going to the U.S.

[modifier] Réserves du Moyen-Orient

There are varying estimates of how much oil is left in Middle Eastern reserves. Several oil companies and the U.S. Department of Energy state that le Moyen-Orient has two-thirds of all the world's oil reserves. Other oil experts, however, argue that le Moyen-Orient has two-thirds of only all proven oil reserves, and that the percentage of all oil reserves it has could be much lower than two-thirds [7]. The U.S. Geological Survey says that le Moyen-Orient has only between half and a third of the recoverable oil reserves in the world.

[modifier] Estimations suspectes de certains pays de l'OPEP

Les pays membres de l’OPEP ont decidé en 1985 to link their production quotas to their reserves. What then seemed wise provoked important increases of the estimates; in order to increase their production rights. This also permits the obtainment of bigger loans at lesser interest rates. This is a suspected reason for the reserves rise of Iraq in 1983, then at war with Iran.

In fact, Dr. Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, a former senior executive of the National Iranian Oil Company, has stated unequivocally that OPEC's oil reserves (notably Iran's) are grossly overstated. In a recent interview [8] he stated that world oil production is now at its peak and predicted that it will fall 32% by 2020.

Déclarations de réserves avec augmentations suspectes (en milliards de barils) d'après Colin Campbell, SunWorld, 80'-95
Année	Abou Dabi	Dubaï	Iran	Irak	Koweït	Arabie saoudite	Venezuela
1980	28,00	1,40	58,00	31,00	65,40	163,35	17,87
1981	29,00	1,40	57,50	30,00	65,90	165,00	17,95
1982	30,60	1,27	57,00	29,70	64,48	164,60	20,30
1983	30,51	1,44	55,31	41,00	64,23	162,40	21,50
1984	30,40	1,44	51,00	43,00	63,90	166,00	24,85
1985	30,50	1,44	48,50	44,50	90,00	169,00	25,85
1986	31,00	1,40	47,88	44,11	89,77	168,80	25,59
1987	31,00	1,35	48,80	47,10	91,92	166,57	25,00
1988	92,21	4,00	92,85	100,00	91,92	166,98	56,30
1989	92,20	4,00	92,85	100,00	91,92	169,97	58,08
1990	92,20	4,00	93,00	100,00	95,00	258,00	59,00
1991	92,20	4,00	93,00	100,00	94,00	258,00	59,00
1992	92,20	4,00	93,00	100,00	94,00	258,00	62,70
2004	92,20	4,00	132,00	115,00	99,00	259,00	78,00

The total declared reserves are 701 billion barrels , from which 317.54 are suspicious(the year 2004 was added later).

The table suggests that, firstly, the OPEC countries declare that the discovery of new fields, year after year, replaces exactly or near exactly the quantities produced, because the declared reserves do not vary a lot from one year to the other. Par exemple, l’Arabie saoudite extrait 3 milliards de barils par an, which will diminish by this amount. However, Abou Dabi, in the Émirats arabes unis, declares exactly 92,3 milliards de barils since 1988, mais en 16 ans, 14 billion barrels were extracted.

Also, there is much competition between states. For example, Kuwait gave to themselves 90 billion barrels of reserves in 1985, the year of the reserves link. Abou Dabi and Iran responded with slightly higher numbers, to guarantee similar production quotas. Saddam Hussein, fearing to be left behind by nations he disliked, replied with around 100. Apparently, with all this amount of inflation, Saudi Arabia was forced to reply, two years later, with its own revision.

Other examples suggest the inaccuracy of official reserve estimates:

• Janvier 2006, the magazine Petroleum Intelligence Weekly declared that reserves of Kuwait were in fact only 48 billion barrels, of which only 24 billion were "completely proven", backing this statement on "leaks" of official confidential Kuwaiti documents. The value is half of the official estimate.[9]

• Shell company announced 9 janvier 2004 that 20% of its reserves had to pass from proven to possible (uncertain). This announcement led to a loss in the value of the stock; a lawsuit challenged that the value of the company was fraudulently overvalued. Shell later revised its reserves estimates three times, reducing them by 10,133 million barrels (against 14,500 million). Le président de Shell, Phil Watts, démissionna.
• As can be seen on the table the reserves declared by Koweït before and after the Gulf War 1990-1991 are the same, 94 billion barrels, despite the fact that immense oil-well fires ignited by the Iraqi forces had burned off approximately 6 billion barrels.
• In 1970, l’Algérie increased its "proven reserves" estimate (until then 7-8 billion barrels) to 30 billion. Two years later, the estimate was increased to 45 billion. After 1974, the country's estimate was less than 10 billion barrels (as reported by Jean Laherrère).
• Pemex (state company of Mexique) en septembre 2002 decreased its reserve estimate by 53%, from 12.6 to 26.8 billion barrels. Later the estimate was increased to 15.7 billion.
• Other examples exist of reserves being underestimated. En 1993, les réserves de la Guinée équatoriale were limited to some insignificant fields; the Oil And Gas Journal estimated them at 12 million barrels. Two giant fields and several smaller ones were discovered, but the numbers announced stayed unchanged until 2003. En 2002, the country still had 12 million barrels of reserves according to the journal, while it was producing 85 million barrels in the same year. The reserves of Angola were at 5.421 billion barrels, (three significant numbers, it gives the impression of great precision) from 1994 to 2003, despite the discovery of 38 new fields of more than 100 million barrels each.

Note however that the definition of proven reserves varies from country to country. In the USA, the conservative rule is to classify as proven only the reserves that are being produced. On the other hand, l’Arabie saoudite classifies as proven reserves known fields not yet in production. Venezuela includes non-conventional oil (bitumens) of the Orinoco in its reserve base.

[modifier] Arabie saoudite

With one-fourth of the world's proven oil reserves and some of its lowest production costs, Arabie saoudite produces over 4 gigabarrels of oil per year and is likely to remain the world's largest oil exporter for the foreseeable future. However, there are serious political risks involved in Saudi Arabian domination of the world oil market. In spite of recent increases in oil income, Saudi Arabia faces serious long-term challenges, including rates of unemployment of at least 13 percent, one of the world's fastest population growth rates (its population has tripled since 1980), and a political system best described as medieval.

Selon l’Oil and Gas Journal, l’Arabie saoudite contains 262 gigabarrels of proven oil reserves, around one-fourth of proven, conventional world oil reserves. Although Saudi Arabia has around 80 oil and gas fields, more than half of its oil reserves are contained in only eight fields, and more than half its production comes from one field, the Ghawar field.

One challenge for the Saudis in maintaining or increasing production is that their existing fields sustain 5-12 percent annual decline rates, meaning that the country needs new capacity each year to compensate. The challenge is that the Ghawar field, found in 1948, has produced about half its total reserves, and is starting to run into production problems — notably, there are rumors that it is now producing more water than oil. Other Saudi fields are not only smaller, but more difficult to produce. Historically, when Saudi Arabia has run into production problems in other fields, it has simply shut them in and stepped up production in Ghawar, but if Ghawar runs into problems that no longer will be possible.

Since l’Arabie saoudite is the world's largest producer of oil, their reserves are analyzed very closely and estimates vary on the amount of economically recoverable oil in Saudia Arabia. The raw data is not available to outside scrutiny. The International Energy Agency has predicted that Saudi oil output will double during the next two decades, projecting production of 7 gigabarrels per year in 2020, although this seems unlikely, if only for political reasons.

A dissenting opinion regarding Saudi oil reserves came from Matthew Simmons who claimed in his 2004 book "Twilight in the Desert" that Saudi Arabia's oil production is declining, and that it will not be able to produce more than current levels — about 4 gigabarrels per year [10]. In addition to his belief that the Saudi fields have hit their peak, Simmons also argues that the Saudis may have irretrievably damaged their large oil fields by overpumping salt water into the fields in an effort to maintain the fields' pressure and thus make the oil easier to extract.

Since 1982 the Saudis have withheld their well data and any detailed data on their reserves, giving outside experts no way to verify the overall size of Saudi reserves and output. However, experts question the Saudi claim that recent declines in production are due to lack of demand (which no other producer has experienced), and pointed to the fact that the number of drilling rigs in Saudi Arabia has tripled with no comparable increase in production as disturbingly similar to what happened in Texas when US production peaked and started to decline in the 1970's. This could mean that many Saudi oil wells have peaked and have begun the decline toward the end of their economic usefulness. Only with verifiable data can production and reserves increases or declines be demonstrated.

[modifier] Iran

Iran has the world's second largest reserves of conventional crude oil at 133 gigabarrels, according to the CIA World Factbook, although it should be noted that both Canada and Venezuela have larger reserves si le pétrole non conventionnel is included. Iran is the second largest oil holder globally with approximately 9% of the world's oil.

Iran averages about 1.5 gigabarrels per year, which is a significant decline from the 6 gigabarrels per year it produced when the Shah of Iran was in power. The United States prohibits imports of oil from Iran, which limits its exposure to an Iranian oil cutoff, but does not reduce the likelihood that an interruption of Iranian oil would cause a spike in world oil prices. American pressure on Iran to renounce programme nucléaire iranien makes the possibility of military confrontation quite high, and the political risks of Iranian oil far outweigh any geological ones.

[modifier] Iraq

Iraq has the fourth largest reserves of conventional oil in the world at 112 gigabarrels. Despite its vast oil reserves and low costs, production has not recovered since the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. Constant looting, insurgent attacks, and sabotage in the oil fields has limited production to around 0.5 gigabarrels per year at best. Political risk is thus the main constraint on Iraqi oil production and likely to remain so in the near future. Unfortunately the oil of Iraq has not been made a clear progress for Iraqis. The oil was totally budgeted for wars during the ex-regime and since 2003 and so far some Iraqi leaders export this oil illegally and the money goes for personal accounts in countries such as Iran, Syria, Jordan, Emirates, Egypt, and American as well.

[modifier] Émirats arabes unis et Koweït

Les Émirats arabes unis et le Koweït are nearly tied for the fifth largest conventional oil reserves in the world at 98 and 97 gigabarrels, respectively. The UAE produces about 0.8 gigabarrels per year and has about 100 years of reserves at that rate while Kuwait produces about the same amount and also has about 100 years of reserves. Abou Dabi has 94 percent of the UAE's oil reserves while most of Kuwait's oil reserves are in the Burgan Field, the world's second largest oil field after Saudi Arabia's Ghawar. Kuwait hopes to step up oil production to reach capacity of 4 million bbl/d by 2020, but since Burgan was found in 1938 and is getting very mature, this will be a challenge. Furthermore, according to data leaked from the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), Kuwait's remaining proven and non-proven oil reserves are only about half the official figure - 48 gigabarrels.

[modifier] 2020 Vision

The US EIA (Energy Information Administration) reduced their forcast for Saudi oil production to 15.4 mb/jour en 2020 and Middle East OPEC countries increasing to 35.2 mb/day by 2020 from 20.7 mb/day in 2002 [Internation Energy Outlook 2005 table E1 [11]. These estimates were further reduced in the 2006 Annual Energy Outlook, in which Middle East OPEC production was projected to be 29.4/27.0/18.5 mb/day in 2020 assuming $34/$51/$85 oil prices respectively [12].

[modifier] Oil supplies

The term oil supplies is sometimes used to mean the same thing as oil reserves. However, Oil reserves refer mainly to oil in the ground that can be recovered economically. Oil supply also includes the oil production and processing facilities and the oil delivery systems that provide oil to the end user. When there is a 'shortage' of supply it is more often a problem of the delivery systems than a failure of reserves. While geologists are sure the world will eventually run out of oil, economists are sure there will always be a price at which supply will meet demand, albeit possibly at a higher price than people would like to pay.

[modifier] Exploration pétrolière

Arctic basins tend to be richer in natural gas than in oil. The abundance of gas in the Arctic so far from main markets will require moving gas long distances. Problems of ensuring that oil and gas keep flowing freely in arctic subsea pipelines are virtually identical to those experienced at a depth of 8,000 feet dans le golfe du Mexique, where temperatures are at or close to the freezing point along the seafloor where hydrates can form. Technologie for moving oil from the seafloor to the shore is similar to that employed in Norvège, and may someday have application in Alaska.

Shell, one of the world's largest oil companies, believes Arcticque waters, including those of northern Alaska, hold great potential as an oil and gaz naturel frontier. Shell sees the Arctic as a very tantalizing opportunity to develop new oil and gas resources and the last remaining frontier. The company's views tend to support studies by academics and Agences that Arctic basins contain 25% of the world's remaining undiscovered resources. Most of these basins are unexplored and undeveloped. Shell recognizes how "difficult and challenging" the social, environmental, and economic aspects will be. Shell believes that technology solutions developed for other areas, such as the deepwater, will have applications in the offshore Arctic.

However, in early 2006, Shell made a bold move into non-conventional oil when purchased C$465 million worth of leases in northern Canada just outside the sables bitumineux de l'Athabasca. Mysteriously, Shell did not assign the property to Shell Canada, which already has a large oil sands operation in the area, but created a new, wholly-owned subsidiary called SURE Northern Energy Ltd. (SURE Northern) to develop the leases. While the area is known to contain large oil deposits, it is not included in current Canadian oil reserves because the geology is harder and more rocky than the sand which characterizes most oilsands projects.

[modifier] Strategic oil reserves

Many countries maintain government-controlled oil reserves for both economic and national security reasons. Although there are global strategic petroleum reserves, the following highlights the strategic reserves of the top three oil consumers.

Les États-Unis maintains a Strategic Petroleum Reserve at four sites dans le golfe du Mexique, with a total capacity of 0.727 gigabarrels of crude oil. The sites are enormous salt caverns that have been converted to store crude oil. The US SPR has never been filled to capacity; the largest amount reached thus far was 0.7 gigabarrels on August 17, 2005, whereafter reserves were drawn down to meet demand in the aftermath of ouragan Katrina. This reserve was created in 1975 following the 1973-1974 oil embargo, and as of 2005 it is the largest emergency petroleum supply in the world. At current US consumption rates (over 7 gigabarrels per year), the SPR would supply all normal US demand for approximately 37 days.

La République populaire de Chine, le deuxième plus gros consommateur de pétrole après les États-Unis, has begun a plan to build strategic crude reserves as the country's demand for energy continues to grow. The size of this future Chinese strategic petroleum reserve will be in the neighborhood of approximately 0.15 gigabarrels. It has also told its three largest state oil groups to purchase foreign oil holdings to ensure adequate strategic energy supplies to power the country's rapidly growing economy. Separately, Kong Linglong, director of the National Development and Reform Commission's Foreign Investment Department, said that the Chinese government would soon move to establish a government fund aimed at helping its state oil groups purchase offshore energy assets.

Le Japon, le troisième plus gros consommateur de pétrole, has its own state controlled strategic petroleum reserve. Selon l’Agency for Natural Resources and Energy du Japon, le Japon has state reserves of petroleum for 92 jours de consommation and privately held reserves for another 78 days of consumption, for a total of 171 days of consumption. Ces réserves sont particulièrement importantes pour le Japon since they have practically no domestic petroleum production and import at least 95% of their oil.

[modifier] Pays membre de l'OPEP

De nombreux pays détenteur de large réserve pétrolière sont membres de l'Organisation des pays exportateurs de pétrole ou OPEP (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ou OPEC en anglais). L'OPEP représente environ deux tiers des réserves mondiales de pétrole ce qui leur accorde un rôle signifiant sur le cours mondial du pétrole brut.

[modifier] Réserves pétrolières par pays

As the amount of oil left is an estimate, not a known amount, there are many differing estimates for the amount of oil remaining in different regions of the world. The following table lists the highest and lowest estimates for regions, and countries, with significant oil reserves in gigabarrels (10⁹ barrels), as listed here [13]. The large range of some country's estimates, Canada in particular, stems from factors such as the potential future development of non-conventional oil from tar sands, oil shale, etc.

Pays/Région	Lowest estimate	Highest estimate
Amérique du Nord	50,7	222,9
Canada	16,5	178,8
États-Unis	21,3	29,3
Mexique	12,9	14,8
Amérique centrale & du Sud	76	101,1
Venezuela	52,4	361,2
Brésil	10,6	11,2
Europe de l'Ouest	16,2	17,3
Norvège	7,7	8,0
Europe de l'Est & Former USSR	79,2	121,9
Russie	60	72,4
Kazakhstan	9	39,6
Moyen-Orient	708,3	733,9
Iran	125,8	132,7
Iraq	115	115
Koweït	99	101,5
Qatar	15,2	15,2
Arabie saoudite1	261,9	264,3
UAE	69,9	97,8
Afrique	100,8	113,8
Algérie	11.4	11.8
Libye	33,6	39,1
Nigeria	35,3	35,9
Asie et Océanie	36,2	39,8
République populaire de Chine	15,4	16,0
Australie	1,5	4
Inde	4,9	5,6
Indonésie	4,3	4,3
Total Monde	1082	1350,7

¹This reserve number cannot be verified.

[modifier] Pays qui ont déjà atteint leur pic de production

Modèle:POV-section Note: this table is a work in progress, and not all classifications of countries are correct.

	Pétrole classique (léger, lourd, profond, polaire)				Autres réserves d'hydrocarbures				Notes
Pays	Pic des découvertes de pétrole	Pic de la production de pétrole	Mi-point de l'épuisement du pétrole		Pic du gaz naturel	Pic du charbon	Pic des sables bitumineux, shale
Amérique du Nord
Canada	1958	1973	1988		2002				Importance du pétrole extra-lourd
États-Unis	1930	1971	2003		1974				Cas d'école du peak oil, King Hubbert
Mexique	1977	2003	1999						En phase de plateau, début de déclin a priori très rapide
Amérique du Sud
Argentine	1960	1998	1994		2004
Colombie	1992	1999	1999
Venezuela 1	1941	1970	2003						Importance du pétrole extra-lourd
Chili	1960	1982	1979		~1980
Équateur 2	1969	2004	2007
Pérou	1861	1983	1988
Trinidad	1969	1978	1983
Europe
Albanie	1928	1983	1986
Autriche	1947	1955	1970
Croatie	1950	1988	1987
Danemark	1971	2002	2004
France	1958	1988	1987		1978
Allemagne	1952	1966	1977		1979
Hongrie	1964	1987	1987
Italie	1981	1997	2005		1994
Pays-Bas	1980	1987	1991		1976				Production de gaz réglementée
Norvège	1979	2003	2003
Roumanie	1857	1976	1970		1982				Fut le premier pays producteur
Ukraine	1962	1970	1984		avt 85
Royaume-Uni	1974	1999	1998		2000				Offshore, déclin très rapide
Afrique
Cameroun	1977	1986	1994
Rép. Congo	1984	2001	2000						2e pic possible grâce à l'offshore lointain
Égypte	1965	1995	2007
Gabon 2	1985	1996	1997
Libye 1	1961	1970	2011
Tunisie	1971	1981	1998
Moyen-Orient
Bahrein	1932	1970	1977
Oman	1962	2001	2003
Qatar 1	1940	2004	1998						Immenses réserves de gaz
Syrie	1966	1995	1998
Yemen	1978	1999	2003
Eurasie et Asie centrale
Turquie	1969	1991	1992
Ouzbekistan	1992	1998	2008
Reste de l'Asie
Brunei	1929	1978	1989		2003?
Chine	1953	2003	2003
Inde	1974	2004	2003
Indonésie 1	1955	1977	1992						Pic secondaire en 1996
Malaisie	1973	2004	2002						En phase de plateau
Pakistan	1983	1992	2001
Thaïlande	1981	2005?	2008
Océanie
PNG	1987	1993	2007
Australie	1967	2000	2000						Déclin très rapide
Nlle-Zélande					2001				Pénurie de gaz, crise économique

Données issues de [14] et du rapport annuel du British Petroleum Energy.
¹ membre de l'Opep. Ces pays ont connu un pic « artificiel » avec l'établissement du quota, mais la plupart ne pourront jamais rejoindre les chiffres de production de cette époque. Il en va de même pour quelques pays non-Opep comme Brunei et Trinidad, qui eux aussi ont volontairement restreint leur production dans les années 70.
² anciens membres de l'Opep.

[modifier] Voir aussi

[modifier] Liens internes

• Pétrole non conventionnel
• Exploration pétrolière
• Pic pétrolier
• Strategic Petroleum Reserve
• Global strategic petroleum reserves
• Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas

[modifier] Références bibliographiques

• Adams Neal, Terrorism & Oil (2002, pg.66), ISBN 0-87814-863-9
• Various, The Oil Industry of the Former Soviet Union: Reserves, Extraction, Transportation (1998, pg. 24-59), ISBN 90-5699-062-4
• Robert J Art, Grand Strategy for America (2003, pg.62), ISBN 0-8014-4139-0
• Paul Roberts, "The End of Oil", (2004 p47-p52), Bloomsbury, pbk, ISBN 0-7475-7081-7

[modifier] External links

• The Life After The Oil Crash: The End Of The World As We Know It
• Society of Petroleum Engineers: Petroleum Reserves & Resources Definitions
• TrendLines' current Peak Oil Depletion Scenarios Graph
• The-end-of-oil.com by Paul Roberts
• U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy information on managed reserves
• U.S. Department of Energy International Energy Outlook July 2005
• U.S. Department of Energy Annual Energy Outlook 2006
• Twilight in the Desert, a book by Matthew Simmons explaining how Saudi reserves are quesionable at best and discusses the possibility that the Saudis have damaged the large oil fields by pumping seawater into them.
• Discusses Peak Oil implications
• Peak Oil and Permaculture - An interview with David Holmgren
• LOGDIGI
• Oil-Gas-News.Com.
• [15]
• [16]
• [17]
• [18]
• [19]
• [20]
• [21]
• World Oil Reserves and Supply Statistics
• List of Proven Reserves of US Stock Exchange Listed Public Oil and Natural Gas Firms

[modifier] Notes