Abstract

The petroleum resources considered here are those liquid crude oils that can be produced by conventional production technologies and, to some extent, those unconventional sources of crude oils that can be captured and converted into conventional sources in the near term by advancing production technologies. Most of the large volume of these crude oils that are consumed in the world are produced from only a small fraction of the oil fields that have been discovered. By far the largest concentration of these reserves is located in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. More than one-half of the world's proved reserves are contained in 51 out of the more than 20,000 fields that have been discovered. Proved reserves in countries with mature producing provinces such as the United States have been declining. However, the United States remained the second largest producer in the world in 1992. The former Soviet Union was the largest producer of crude oil. In terms of the balance of consumption vs production, the Eastern Hemisphere produces 71% and consumes 65% of the world's crude oil. Most of the surplus 6% is consumed in the United States. In terms of regional production and consumption, the Middle Eastern region produces five times more crude oil than it consumes. The counterpart to this imbalance is in OECD Europe, where consumption is three times production.

The world is not running out of crude oil in the ground. Important technological and economic problems, however, need to be solved so that these resources can be converted to usable reserves.