Venezuela: Reserves up
Venezuela ups reserves by 172 bn barrels
Venezuela increased its proved reserves by 14% last year, edging closer to leader Saudi Arabia.
Venezuela’s 172.3 billion barrels as of 31 December were mostly boosted by Orinoco Belt projects that proved economic oil recoverability, according to a statement today in the Official Gazette, the country’s formal record of government rules.
The Orinoco region is being counted on to increase the South American country’s oil output, which has fallen by 31% since 2001, said a Bloomberg report.
Joint ventures between Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA and entities from more than a dozen other countries are working on development plans for the area.
At the end of 2007, Saudi Arabia had 264.2 billion barrels of proved reserves, Iran had 138.4 billion barrels and Venezuela had 87 billion barrels, according to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy.
Oil reserves are made up of known crude deposits that can be profitably extracted with current technology under current market conditions.