There's gold/oil in them thar hills !
 

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

So why go p1551ng around in other people's countries to secure foreign oil reserves ?

dunx

So once they've sucked the rest of the planet dry, they're the ones with oil left.

Hmm... or to help keep prices artificially high !

dunx

I was watching a 'How do they do it' program the other day where they were extracting oil from the ground in Canada (oil sand bitumen) and they estimated there is enough there to feed the worlds appetite for 250 years.

Is that a lot? What are the reserves in Saudi for example?

Steve

Google is my friend.

1 Saudi Arabia: 262,700,000,000 barrels
# 2 Canada: 178,900,000,000 barrels
# 3 Iran: 133,300,000,000 barrels
# 4 Iraq: 112,500,000,000 barrels
# 5 United Arab Emirates: 97,800,000,000 barrels
# 6 Kuwait: 96,500,000,000 barrels
# 7 Venezuela: 75,590,000,000 barrels
# 8 Russia: 69,000,000,000 barrels
# 9 Libya: 40,000,000,000 barrels
# 10 Nigeria: 36,000,000,000 barrels

So 43 000 000 000 barrels refered to in the link above is a lot; unless you are an AAAaarab :D

Steve

http://ostseis.anl.gov/guide/oilshale/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_reserves
and a bit old but ... http://energy.pressandjournal.co.uk/...0483/?UserKey= ...

All this talk of "peak oil" is just b*llux, perpetuated by the tree-huggers to drive us all back to the stone age ....

Dave

Still, it is a finite resource... but we'll have moved on from it long before it has run out IMO.

A report published in the late 90's and subsequently buried suggested that oil is a by-product of Earth core activity, and the plant matter content may come from the voids it seeps into in the shallow earth. If this were true then supplies are only as limitless as the longevity of the Earth itself.

They will hang on to that oil in their country as was stated earlier so that when it does become scarce they will have those reseves to fall back on.

Les

I have also recently worked out the formula to turn lead into gold. PM me for bargain prices. :D

It's not 43 000 000 000 barrels in the link, it's only 4 300 000 000 barrels (4.3 Billion), which is around the same amount the UK has left in the North Sea.

Better than a kick in the teeth, but hardly a game-changer in the strategic reserves stakes.