Oil reserves in the context of "Barrel of oil equivalent"

Africa has a large quantity of natural resources, including diamonds, sugar, salt, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver, petroleum, natural gas and cocoa beans, but also tropical timber and tropical fruit.

Recently discovered oil reserves have increased the importance of the commodity in African economies. Nigeria, Angola, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, and South Sudan are among the largest oil producers in Africa. The United States and European countries took most of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) oil production. Oil is provided by both continental and offshore productions. Sudan's oil exports in 2010 are estimated by the United States Department of State at US$9 billion.

In the oil and gas industry, reservoir modeling involves the construction of a computer model of a petroleum reservoir, for the purposes of improving estimation of reserves and making decisions regarding the development of the field, predicting future production, placing additional wells and evaluating alternative reservoir management scenarios.

A reservoir model represents the physical space of the reservoir by an array of discrete cells, delineated by a grid which may be regular or irregular. The array of cells is usually three-dimensional, although 1D and 2D models are sometimes used. Values for attributes such as porosity, permeability and water saturation are associated with each cell. The value of each attribute is implicitly deemed to apply uniformly throughout the volume of the reservoir represented by the cell.

Proven oil reserves are those quantities of petroleum which, by analysis of geological and engineering data, can be estimated, with a high degree of confidence, to be commercially recoverable from a given date forward from known reservoirs and under current economic conditions.

Some statistics on this page are disputed and controversial—different sources (OPEC, CIA World Factbook, oil companies) give different figures. Some of the differences reflect different types of oil included. Different estimates may or may not include oil shale, mined oil sands or natural gas liquids.

From the mid-1980s to September 2003, the inflation-adjusted price of a barrel of crude oil on NYMEX was generally under US$25/barrel in 2008 dollars. During 2003, the price rose above $30, reached $60 by 11 August 2005, and peaked at $147.30 in July 2008. Commentators attributed these price increases to multiple factors, including Middle East tension, soaring demand from China, the falling value of the U.S. dollar, reports showing a decline in petroleum reserves, worries over peak oil, and financial speculation.

For a time, geopolitical events and natural disasters had strong short-term effects on oil prices, such as North Korean missile tests, the 2006 conflict between Israel and Lebanon, worries over Iranian nuclear plans in 2006, Hurricane Katrina, and various other factors. By 2008, such pressures appeared to have an insignificant impact on oil prices given the onset of the global recession. The recession caused demand for energy to shrink in late 2008, with oil prices collapsing from the July 2008 high of $147 to a December 2008 low of $32. However, it has been disputed that the laws of supply and demand of oil could have been responsible for an almost 80% drop in the oil price within a six-month period. Oil prices stabilized by August 2009 and generally remained in a broad trading range between $70 and $120 through November 2014, before returning to 2003 pre-crisis levels by early 2016, as US production increased dramatically. The United States went on to become the largest oil producer by 2018.

The Senkaku Islands dispute, or Diaoyu Islands dispute, is a territorial dispute over a group of uninhabited islands known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan, the Diaoyu Islands in China, and Tiaoyutai Islands in Taiwan. Japan controlled the islands from 1895 until the end of World War II in 1945, after which the United States controlled the islands, which it administered as part of the Ryukyu Islands. In 1972, the United States transferred the islands to Japan. The islands are administered as part of the Okinawa Prefecture.

The islands are positioned close to key shipping lanes and rich fishing grounds, and there may be oil reserves in the area. Japan argues that it surveyed the islands in the late 19th century and found them to be terra nullius (Latin: land belonging to no one); subsequently, China acquiesced to Japanese sovereignty until the 1970s. According to Lee Seokwoo, China started taking up the question of sovereignty over the islands in the latter half of 1970 when evidence relating to the existence of oil reserves surfaced. Taiwan also claims the islands. The PRC and the ROC argue that documentary evidence prior to the First Sino-Japanese War indicates Chinese possession and that the territory is accordingly a Japanese seizure that should be returned as the rest of Imperial Japan's conquests were returned in 1945.

On 19 August 1953, Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup d'état orchestrated by the United States (CIA) and the United Kingdom (MI6). A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mossadegh nationalized and refused to concede to western oil demands. It was instigated by the United States (under the name TP-AJAX Project or Operation Ajax) and the United Kingdom (under the name Operation Boot).

Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now part of BP), to verify that AIOC was paying the contracted royalties to Iran, and to limit the company's control over Iranian oil reserves. Upon the AIOC's refusal to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament (Majlis) voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country. After this vote, Britain instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically. Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the British-built Abadan oil refinery, then the world's largest, but Prime Minister Clement Attlee (in power until 1951) opted instead to tighten the economic boycott while using Iranian agents to undermine Mosaddegh's government. Judging Mosaddegh to be unamenable and fearing the growing influence of the communist Tudeh, UK prime minister Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration decided in early 1953 to overthrow Iran's government. The preceding Truman administration had opposed a coup, fearing the precedent that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) involvement would set, and the U.S. government had been considering unilateral action (without UK support) to assist the Mosaddegh government as late as 1952. British intelligence officials' conclusions and the UK government's solicitations to the US were instrumental in initiating and planning the coup.

Energy in Iran is characterized by vast reserves of fossil fuels, positioning the country as a global energy powerhouse. Iran holds the world's third-largest proved oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves as of 2021, accounting for 24% of the Middle East's oil reserves and 12% of the global total.

In 2020, the Total Energy Supply (TES) in Iran was predominantly derived from natural gas (69%) and oil (29%), with nuclear power and renewable sources contributing only 1% each. Despite the heavy reliance on fossil fuels, Iran possesses significant potential for renewable energy. Due to its geographical location near the equator, 90% of the country's land is suitable for solar power generation for at least 300 days a year.

Saudi Aramco (Arabic: أرامكو السعودية ʾArāmkū as-Suʿūdiyyah) or Aramco (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company that is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. As of 2024, it is the fourth-largest company in the world by revenue and is headquartered in Dhahran. Saudi Aramco has both the world's second-largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 270 billion barrels (43 billion cubic metres), and largest daily oil production of all oil-producing companies.

Saudi Aramco operates the world's largest single hydrocarbon network, the Master Gas System. In 2024, its oil production total was 12.7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, and it manages over one hundred oil and gas fields in Saudi Arabia, including 288.4 trillion standard cubic feet (scf) of natural gas reserves. Along the Eastern Province, Saudi Aramco most notably operates the Ghawar Field (the world's largest onshore oil field) and the Safaniya Field (the world's largest offshore oil field).