The Hindu Business Line : `India's oil reserves to last just another 19 years'

The numbers
India is in the company of Australia, Italy and Brazil whose reserves are also projected to last for 20-21 years from now.
Iraq and Kuwait's reserves are expected to last more than 100 years at their current rate of production, while that of Saudi Arabia is projected to last another 66 years.

Chennai June 16 How long will India's oil reserves last? Just another 19.3 years at the current rate of production, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2007, which was released by the British multinational early this week. Last year, the same study had said that India's reserves would last about 20 years. The lower estimate now reflects the country's inability to add to its proven oil reserves.

However, compared with BP's review five years ago (in 2002) when the country's oil reserves were projected to last 17.8 years, the current year's estimate is an improvement.

There are basically two reasons for this marginally more optimistic assessment. First, increase in the estimated domestic proven reserves to 5.7 billion barrels as of end-2006 from 4.8 billion barrels as of end-2001. There have been some medium-size oil finds in the last five years including Cairn Energy's discovery in Rajasthan.

Second is the almost stagnant production level in this period. The country produced 0.807 million barrels of crude oil a day in 2006 compared with 0.780 million barrels in 2001. Meanwhile, consumption has grown by almost 13 per cent to 2.57 million barrels in 2006 compared with 2.28 million barrels in 2001 leading to higher dependence on imported oil.

India is in the company of Australia, Italy and Brazil whose reserves are also projected to last for 20-21 years from now. Iraq and Kuwait's reserves are expected to last more than 100 years at their current rate of production, while that of Saudi Arabia is projected to last another 66 years.

Global picture

World oil reserves are projected to last another 40.5 years, marginally down from the 40.7 years estimated last year. World oil production in 2006, at 81.66 million barrels per day, was up 0.4 per cent compared with last year, while proven oil reserves fell 0.1 per cent to 1,208 billion barrels.

The authoritative BP Statistical Review of World Energy, published annually by British oil major, BP Plc, is the Holy Book of the world energy industry and is widely respected.

Projections for the life of reserves are made using the reserves-to-production ratio; the reserves remaining at the end of the year are divided by the production in that year which gives the life of the reserve assuming that the same level of production is maintained.