When BP first formed an alliance with Rosneft in 1998 to develop the Sakhalin fields in the Pacific Ocean, the UK oil giant estimated Russia's oil reserves at 56 billion barrels.
When BP agreed its share-swap with the Moscow-based energy group last weekend, the estimate was 75 billion barrels, and development of Rosneft's licences inside the Arctic Circle could increase production enormously.
Such advances undermine the pessimists' predictions that the world's oil will imminently run out.
In 1956, when the concept of "peak oil" – the point at which production starts falling – was formulated, US output was expected to fall from the late 1960s.
But new discoveries have constantly pushed that date back.
BP was estimating world oil reserves at 1 trillion barrels 20 years ago: now, despite record consumption, the estimate is 1.333 trillion.
... Russia is already the world's top oil and gas producer: its equivalent of 18 million barrels of oil a day now exceeds America's 17 million and is far ahead of Saudi Arabia's 11 million.
But while the extent of its reserves is constantly being revised upward, so too are those of many other countries.
In 1980, BP estimated Nigeria's reserves at 16.7 billion barrels; now it says they are 36.2 billion. During that time, estimates of Libya's reserves have been increased from 20 billion to 44 billion, Venezuela's from under 20 billion to almost 100 billion and Iraq's from 30 billion to 115 billion.
New discoveries are running at 15 billion to 20 billion barrels a year, meeting at least half the global consumption.
Drilling off the Falklands could provide a new supply and Cuba may have up to 20 billion barrels, while some estimates suggest America's outer continental shelf could provide the equivalent of 100 billion barrels of oil and gas.
Despite BP's disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year, companies such as Shell are still drilling there to tap reserves 3km below sea level.
The Canadian oil sands are estimated to hold a trillion barrels too and US oil shales have as much.
Iraq, where Shell is developing the Majnoon field, will account for a fifth of global supply growth over the next 20 years, says BP, with capacity potentially reaching 12 million barrels a day by 2020.
THERE IS MORE OIL THAN EVER.
IT MAY EVEN BE A BY-PRODUCT ON INNER-EARTH GEOLOGICAL PROCESSES AND NEVER RUN OUT.
PEAK OIL IS BS - LIKE AGW.
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