Khabar Online: Based on data from the balance sheet of Iran's energy in 2011, Canada is the new rival of Iran as the third biggest owner of oil reserves in the world.

However, during last years,due to its plans and activities in developing oil industry, Iraq has also been introduced asthe otherrival of Iran which could beranked third in the world in terms of proved oil reserves.By increasing oil production, Iraq is challenging Iran's status in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in terms of oil production.
But if we take the non-conventional oil reservoirs of Canada into account, the rank of Iran will nevertheless be downgraded from third to fourth. Canada is one of the largest countries in the world in terms of proved oil reserves and was ranked third in the world in terms of proved oil reserves at the end of 2011. It had 175.2 billion barrels (bbl) of proved oil reserves at the end of 2011, of which 169.2 billion bbl of reserves were available as oil sands.
Because of reserves characteristics and limitations in petroleum extraction technologies, only a fraction of this oil can be brought to the surface, and it is only this producible fraction that is considered to be reserves (according to Wikipedia).
In recent years Iranian, oil and gas industry has been hit by several rounds of economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program. The move has caused international oil firms to avoid investing on Iran's energy projects which prepared the groundfor the Chinese to be more engaged with Iranian oil industry.
However, after the latest round of economic embargos hit Iran, the circumstances led the Iranian officials to supply the necessary equipment for the ongoing plans andtry to break the Chinese hold of Iran's oil industry.They resolved to rely on national facilities and sources as Khatam al-Anbiya, an engineering camp of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has executed big projects in Iran's oil and gas sector.
Based on data from OPEC at the beginning of 2011 the highest proved oil reserves including non-conventional oil deposits are in Venezuela (20% of global reserves), Saudi Arabia (18% of global reserves), Canada (13%) and Iran (9%).
All reserve estimates involve uncertainty. Many oil-producing nations do not reveal their reservoir engineering field data and instead provide unaudited claims for their oil reserves. The numbers disclosed by some national governments are suspected of being manipulated for political reasons.
Iran's OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi had earlier stressedthat Venezuela'sdeposits include non-conventionalresources and thus Iran rejects the new rank given to Venezuela. He said after consultation with Iran, OPEC is to establish a committee to consider the issue. Khatibi further said that based on OPEC's rules, the total reserves of a country do not include non-conventional resources.
HoweverIran's energy balance sheet of in 2011bluntly asserts that Iran's rank in terms of having the third vastest oil reserves in the world has changed. The page 58 ofIran's energy balance sheet of in 2011 states that the total recoverable crude oil with counting the newly found resources was 154.58 bbl which compared to 2010 increased by 3.41 billion bbl and 2.3 percent.
Iran's recoverable crude oil reserves have had positive and negative growth from 2004 to 2008. However due to new efforts in tracing and exploring oil deposits in the country as well as reducing the level of production, crude oil reserves were considerably boosted in 2009 and 2010.
Translated by Ali Ameri

 

 

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