EGEE 101
Energy and the Environment

World Oil

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World Proved Reserves of Oil and Natural Gas

The map below shows the world's oil fields. But how much oil is left? The following link contains a table with proven worldwide reserves of oil and natural gas. It’s interesting to see the total worldwide picture in one place and the number of countries that have proven hydrocarbon reserves. However, although it’s popular to measure reserves using the term “proven reserves,” that is not the whole story.

 World oil map
Worldwide areas with known oil occurrences.
Credit: EIA

The Oil Reserve Fallacy

Proven reserves are not a measure of future supply. You have so far seen the simplified picture. Let's dig a little deeper into running out of oil: Look into this site by Bill Kovarik on the oil reserve fallacy. Why is the situation more complex than the simple view? How much oil is there?

The Importance of Refining CAPACITY

The images below show the locations of U.S. refineries and the natural gas pipeline network.

Map of the United States showing refining locations (clustered in several locations: Gulf Coast, Northeast, etc.)
Locations of Operable Petroleum Refineries in the U.S.
Credit: EIA
 Map of natural gas pipelines in the US.
U.S. Natural Gas Pipeline Network
Credit: Energy Information Administration, Office of Oil & Gas, Natural Gas Division, Gas Transportation Information System.

There are a number of observations that can be made from these figures. Firstly, there are concentrations of refineries in the Texas/Louisiana Gulf Coast. There is significant production in those areas and also oil can be offloaded at the major oil ports. The Northeast U.S. has refineries clustered in the coastal areas, again access to both domestic and imported oil. There is obviously a demand for refined products in densely populated areas. 

Natural Gas Pipelines and LNG

For the natural gas pipelines, there are a number of locations where natural gas can be imported to or exported from the US. This includes 9 LNG (liquefied natural gas) facilities in the continental US and Alaska and an additional one in Puerto Rico. LNG is important to the US in that it allows natural gas to be transported by special ships after converting the gas to a liquid (by lowering the temperature of the gas to minus 160 °C. Prior to the acceptance of this process by the industry, gas was vented to the atmosphere or burned in many places in the world as it was not economical to transport it by pipeline. There are many sources available on the internet if you would like more information on LNG. An overview is here. Bottom line is that natural gas is a desirable fuel that is mostly stranded as we do not yet have the pipelines to export large quantities overseas through LNG shipping terminals.

World Crude Oil Refining Capacity

You can see from the charts below that not all producing countries have significant refining capacities. Countries that have significant oil production such as Nigeria, export crude to other countries and import refined products such as gasoline. 

 World Crude Oil Refining Capacity 1970 - 2007
World Crude Oil Refining Capacity
Credit: Energy Information Administration /  Annual Energy Review 2007