World Oil Reserve

FIGURE 1.9 (a) World coal reserves by region, December 31, 1990. (b) World oil reserves by region, January 1, 1993. (c) World natural gas reserves by region, January 1, 1993. 

Even though there is a great potential in the chemical EOR methods to considerably expand the World oil reserves, they still remain marginal [116, 117] more than 30 years after an unprecedented research effort to understand how petroleum is trapped in an oil reservoir and to develop technologies was carried out. The drop of crude oil price in the early 80s has probably been the main reason for this but a second main limiting issue still to be settled is the incomplete understanding of the interconnection between all occurring processes. 

It may not be possible for petroleum to be completely replaced by alternative power sources in the foreseeable future. According to forecasts, the world demand will grow at the rate of 1.5 percent per year, and the supply will essentially not increase, unless Iraq gets a new quota to increase the volume of petroleum for export. Before the energy crisis in 1973, the world s oil extraction was practically doubled every ten years during the past 70 years. But now, only four member countries of OPEC (which hold 66% of the world oil reserves) can in-... 

The proven petroleum reserve estimate of the United Arabian Emirates is approximately 98 billion barrels (slightly less than 10% of world oil reserves). The biggest part of oil wells is concentrated in Emirate Abu Dabi. The extraction of petroleum in United Arab Emirates exceeds 2.3 million barrels per day. Nowadays, approximately 2.2 million barrels of petroleum is exported. The main importers of petroleum from the United Arab Emirates are Japan (more than 60% of general export) and other countries of Southeast Asia (not less than 20%). The capacity for oil processing in the United Arab Emirates is approximately 287 thousand barrels per day. 

Due to the known limitations of the world oil reserves, methane oxidation under fuel rich conditions will become increasingly important for the production of synthesis gas. which through methanol synthesis and Fischer-Tropsch reactions is the basis of many important petrochemical synthesis routes. Therefore, catalytic oxidation of methane has again become the focus of much basic and applied catalysis research in recent years. In this context, Schmidt and coworkers were able to show recently, that catalytic direct oxidation of methane over noble metal coated monoliths can yield CO and H2 with very high conversions and selectivities at the desired 1 2 CO H2 ratio (Hickman and Schmidt. 1992 and 1993a Torniainen and Schmidt. 1994 Bharadwaj and Schmidt. 1995). 

Figure 2.12. World oil reserve-to-production ratio, 1980-2002. Source EIA 2005b, 2006d.)...

By far the largest petroleum reserves are found in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia. The proportion of the industrial nations in the list of world oil reserves is relatively small. The USA owns 6%, the USSR 10%. The share held by West European states is extremely small Great Britain, the leading West European oil producer, owns just over 2% of world oil reserves. 

Due to concerns of global warming and the accelerating depletion of world oil reserves, renewable energy sources and technologies are attracting close attention worldwide [1,2]. Fuel cells have been on a fast developmental track in the past two decades because they can... 

According to lEA Outlook 2010 in January 1, 2010, the world s total proved natural gas reserves were estimated at 6,609 trillion cubic feet. As of January 1, 2010, proved world oil reserves were estimated at 12 billion barrels (see Table A-1 in Appendix for the conversion of energy units and Tables 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5). The USA reported 22.5 billion barrels of proved reserves in 1998, proved reserves of 19.1 billion barrels were reported in 2009—a decrease of only 3.4 billion barrels despite the cumulative 24.2 billion barrels of liquids supplied from the US reserves between 1998 and 2009 (lEA Outlook 2010, p. 37). 

Table 1.5 World oil reserves by country as of January 1, 2010 (bbl— billion barrels)...

Explain the shape of the theoretical depletion curve of world oil reserves (Fig. 3.11). 

Fig. 3.11 World consumption of oil and theoretical depletion curve for world oil reserves...

Figure 1.3 shows current world oil reserves for different countries in the world. 

World oil reserve by countries. (From US Energy Information Administration (EIA) http // tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm vie w=reser ves.)... 

After over a century of exploitation, the world s oil quality is declining, simply because the best quality oil was found and used first Conventional oil only constitutes 30 % of the world oil reserves [1] (Fig. 16.1), and is approaching depletion very quickly. Unconventional crudes such as heavy oU, extra-heavy oil and oil sands, which, in the past, were not economical for upgrading, are now playing a more and more important role in the world energy market. 

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