The state of petroleum resources and supply: Some international comparisons

This paper presents empirical indicators of petroleum resources and supply in petroleum producing regions of the world. The empirical indicators developed for this analysis include recoverable appreciation ratio; the replacement rate of produced reserves; reserves to production ratios; drilling risk index; and equitable depletion index. These indicators are presented for geopolitical/economic regions. The indicators are used to compare operational performance of the global upstream petroleum industry in selected economic regions and to infer whether exhaustion of world petroleum resources is imminent. Our paper confirms there is no evidence to support the imminent worldwide petroleum exhaustion theory within the next fifty years. Our empirical indicators show that the global petroleum supply market is well positioned to support even a modest growth in world petroleum demand despite institutional barriers on resource development in some of the more intensely explored and developed regions of the world. In fact, the current estimate of worldwide recoverable reserves seems to be able to sustain the current worldwide production rate for at least the next four to five decades, ceteris paribus.