How many barrels of ';proven reserves'; of oil or petroleum does each major oil company have?

Noone knows. They do issue public statements, but those statements vary in reliability depending on the country of origin and their reporting requirements. OPEC countries are notorious for overstating reserves, because declared reserves dictate what percentage of sales they are allowed. NonOpec Russia overstated their known reserves in the kazhagan field by ten times a few years ago, and misrepresented the quality of the crude. Lots of foreign companies spent a fortune on trying to develop a good, but not great, field. Colombia did the same thing in the Llanos basin 20 years ago. Even some smaller US companies overstate their reserves to attract investment capital.





More importantly, there are different types of oil reserves. You may have seen ';West Texas Intermediate'; or ';Light sweet crude'; or something like that. The problem is, most oil is not light and sweet, rather heavy and/or sour, which presents a dual problem; Heavy sour crude is harder to get out of the ground and harder to refine. Sour crude also has a lot of sulfur to gum up the refineries and then to try to dispose of.





Don't lose any sleep over running out of oil, but you may worry about how much you will have to pay for it, especially in the short-to-intermediate terms. It is worthwhile to research viable alternatives.How many barrels of ';proven reserves'; of oil or petroleum does each major oil company have?
The previous answer is pretty right on. However, a resource that many use is BP's Statistical Review of World Energy (link below).





According to the review ';Proved reserves of oil are generally taken to be those quantities that geological and engineering information indicates with reasonable certainty can be recovered in the future from known reservoirs under existing economic and geological conditions.


The data series for proved oil and gas reserves in this years Review does not necessarily meet the definitions, guidelines and practices used for determining proved reserves at company level, for instance, under accounting rules contained in the Statement of Recommended Practice. 鈥楢ccounting for Oil and Gas Exploration, Development, Production and Decommissioning Activities鈥?(UK SORP) or as published by the US Securities and Exchange Commission nor does it necessarily represent BP鈥檚 view of proved reserves by country. Rather the data series has been compiled using a combination of primary official sources and third-party data. Oil reserves include condensate and natural gas liquids. Canadian oil sands 'under active development' have also been included in proved oil reserves.


We have provided a detailed explanatory note on reserves clarifying current definitions and terminology.


Oil reserves


Reserves-to-production (R/P) ratios are available by country and feature in the table of oil reserves and the charting tool. R/P ratios represent the length of time that those remaining reserves would last if production were to continue at the previous year's level. It is calculated by dividing remaining reserves at the end of the year by the production in that year. ';





I recommend you go to the website directly for additional information.