Oil
Venezuela has surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest holder of proven oil reserves, BP has said in its annual Statistical Review of World Energy.
The South American country’s deposits were at 296.5 billion barrels at the end of last year, while Saudi Arabia held 265.4 billion barrels, BP said in the report which was cited by Bloomberg.
Global reserves advanced to 1.65 trillion barrels at the end of last year, a 1.9 percent increase from a revised 1.62 trillion in 2010, BP said.
Venezuela now holds 18 percent of the world’s reserves, according to BP data.
Saudi Arabia now trails Venezuela with a 16 percent share of world proven oil reserves, according to the report.
Canada ranks third with 175.2 billion barrels, or 11 percent of total.
Russia, the world’s biggest crude producer, boosted its deposits to 88.2 billion barrels from a revised 86.6 billion a year earlier, according to BP. Russia’s share of the total is 5.3 percent.
