Largest Oil Resources, Research Paper Example

Which Countries Have the Largest Oil Resources and Which Produce the Most Oil?

In order from greatest to least, the top ten oil producing countries as of 2014 are:  1) Russia (10,730,000 barrels/day; 2) Saudi Arabia (9,570,000 barrels/day; 3) the United States (9,023,000 barrels/day; 4) Iran (4,230,000 barrels/day; 5) China (4,073,000 barrels/day; 6) Canada (3,592,000 barrels/day; 7) Iraq (3,400,000 barrels per day; 8) United Arab Emirates (3,037,000 barrels/day; 9)Mexico (2,934,000 barrels/day) and 10) Kuwait (2,682,000 barrels/day.  This is not quite the same thing as which countries have the greatest oil reserves.  It is believed that Russian leads this group: it has a proven 60 billion barrels in reserve, but in East Siberia, which is still in the process of being developed, there are estimates that the reserve could be as much as 4.7 trillion barrels.  Saudi Arabia has one of the largest proven reserves at around 263 billion barrels, while Iran and Kuwait clock in with 137 billion barrels and 104 billion barrels, respectively.  Iran has reserves of around 98 billion barrels.   Some, though not all, of these countries are members of OPEC, which currently includes Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Qatar, Libya, the U.A.E., Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador and Angola.

Unfortunately, the wealth produced from countries oil reserves does not always translate into wealth for the individual citizens of that country. In a recent article in Forbes Magazine, a number of top oil-producing countries are analyzed, including some of the countries listed above, for other economic indicators such as the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita.  Some of the high-producing countries, such as the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait had high GDP’s per capita ($49,000 and $43,000 respectively) while other high oil-producing countries like Iraq were very low at only $4,600 GDP per capita.

It is also interesting to note that the top producers of oil are not necessarily the top consumers: the United States Energy Information Administration noted that the top ten oil consumers were, in order from greatest to least: China, the United States, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, South Korea, Mexico and Russia.  The disparity between which countries are producing oil and which are consuming it are, of course, at the heart of many geopolitical conflicts and also of great concern to environmentalists who are wanting to curb the use of fossil fuels to help reduce the global impact of climate change.