Three countries have one-third of global oil reserves, says OPEC

A report by OPEC shows that Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait control about 30 per cent of global oil reserves, Quds Press reported on Sunday. The monthly report said that the reserves of the three countries is about 511.2 billion barrels out of a fixed amount of oil reserves of 1.697 trillion barrels as at the end of 2015. The fixed reserves of OPEC’s members was about 701.6 billion barrels by the end of last year; that’s 41.3 per cent of the world’s reserves.

OPEC said that the average production among its members was about 27 million barrels per day in 2015, which made up 29.5 per cent of the global oil production. It expects this figure to reach 100.4 million barrels per day by 2040, with Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the UAE accounting for 35.3 million barrels, or 35.2 per cent of the total.

The current decline in oil prices, the OPEC report said, has caused a fall in investment in the oil sector, with the postponement or cancellation of many projects.