The 15 Countries with the Largest Oil Reserves

Published on December 15, 2014 at 6:54 am by Milagros Valdez in Lists

Have you ever wondered which are the countries with the largest oil reserves in the world? Although nowadays, the global tendency is to slowly start switching to renewable sources of energy, the disappointing yet inevitable fact remains that humanity still depends greatly on fossil fuels, particularly oil.

Countries with the Largest Oil Reserves

As with many others around the globe, I really wish that we will be able to rely entirely on sustainable energy somewhere in the not-so-distant future. For the sake of the upcoming generations that will have to live on Earth, we should strive to find a way to meet our energy needs without harming the environment or compromising the lives of those who will succeed us any further than we already have. Nevertheless, at the moment, coal, natural gas and oil are essential to our everyday lives. Hence, it is important to know where the countries with the largest oil reserves are, as their possession of it motivates many relationships, both friendly and hostile, between different countries around the world.

Without a doubt, exploiting their fossil fuel reserves is a great source of income for any nation who possesses them. However, these are not the only natural resources a country’s economy could depend on. Extracting valuable minerals and other geological materials is a human activity that has been around since ancient times. Nowadays, mining is a very large industry on which many countries depend on to subsist. Among some well-known mineral resources we can find gemstones, rock salt, clay, potash, gravel, limestone and many metals, including the traditional silver and gold. The latter still stands as one of the most precious metals in the world. If you are interested in the topic, you shouldn’t miss our list on The 10 Countries With the Largest Gold Reserves in the World.

In compiling the current countdown we used the latest available data on the proven oil reserves of each country. This means that we didn’t take into account the crude oil reserves by their size per se, but the figures we analyzed were those of the proven reserves. This term refers to the amount of petroleum that is estimated to be commercially recoverable; these figures are calculated after analyzing in depth geological and engineering data. Basically, as we ranked the countries by their quantity of recoverable oil under current economic conditions, the figures are likely to be altered in the future. Finally, the reserves’ amount are listed in millions of barrels (MMbbl)

Let’s take a look at the countdown and find out which are the countries with the largest oil reserves in the world.