In case you didn’t know it, Saudi Arabia is sitting on top of a lot of oil. The first independent assessment of reserves in about 40 years has just proved it. The question is how the kingdom ensures that most of it won’t still be there when the world no longer wants or needs it. Producers in the rest of the world had better pray it doesn’t decide to solve the problem.
The two-and-a-half-year study by Dallas-based consultant DeGolyer and MacNaughton is the first since Saudi Aramco was nationalized. It confirmed proved oil reserves at the end of 2017 at 263.1 billion barrels. That’s a little higher than Saudi Aramco’s own assessment of 260.9 billion. Both see a further 5.4 billion from Saudi Arabia’s half of the Neutral Zone it shares with Kuwait.
