How much oil is left?

Modern society is heavily reliant on oil for a vast range of uses, from vehicles and transportation to the production of plastics. Humanity’s dependence on so-called “black gold”, lead to the use of 94 million barrels a day in 2014 – draining the equivalent of an Olympic swimming pool every 15 seconds.

With such dramatic consumption, and a variety of needs, it’s reasonable to ask how much oil the world actually has left.

Doom-filled predictions about the fast depletion of oil supplies go all the way back to the birth of widespread oil use in the 1850s. It was even predicted that the world was going to be facing a shortfall of oil as early as 2015, but a surplus of two-million barrels per day was run in that year.

Estimations of how much oil remains vary wildly. In 2014, BP estimated that we may have just 53 years worth of oil left . However, this prediction is unlikely to come true as it was based on ‘proved reserves’, or the amount of available oil a country knows can be drilled currently using existing technology whilst keeping production profitable.

The issue with this estimate is that it fails to take into account the future development of more effective drilling technology. Proved reserves have grown consistently over many years as the technological capability to tap previously unattainable sources of oil at a profitable cost has improved.

A better measurement might be based on the current reserves known to be found in each country, and the speed at which those countries currently produce oil. The key difference is that this method considers all known oil reserves, not just the supplies that can be profitably recovered currently, accounting for technological changes.

By this measure, the amount of oil left varies shockingly between countries. The US may have just over 10 years worth of oil left, whilst the UK has just 9 years worth of reserves left. Meanwhile the three countries with the biggest oil reserves, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Canada have 326 years, 74 years, and 119 years worth of oil remaining, respectively, if production continues at current rates.

These figures are based on the oil reserves we’re aware of alone. New sources of oil may be discovered in the near future, increasing those reserves. Further, as electric cars render their petrol powered counterparts obsolete and fossil fuel based energy is replaced by renewables, oil consumption will likely be reduced to a more sustainable level, making our reserves longer-lasting. Oil consumption is actually already falling in the US, whilst production is rising.

So, should you be concerned about how much oil is left? Probably not. Some countries have huge oil reserves that will last for decades, if not longer, and many of these reserves, such as in the case of Venezuela, are yet to be fully tapped.

Use of fuel is becoming increasingly efficient and fossil fuels will not be the main energy source for much longer. That reduced reliance on petrol means that, even if oil were to run out, our world may still function without it.

Whilst exact estimates about how much oil is left vary, they are likely to change with production and consumption rates, and with the discovery of new oil reserves, the chances are that fears over depleting oil reserves are unfounded.