Venezuela's proven reserves have touched 87.62 billion barrels & if things go as expected, Venezuela will become the nation with world's largest reserves of oil, by 2008.
Venezuela's oil ministry has said that the oil reserves in the country have increased by 7.6 billion barrels in 2006, to reach around 87.6 billion barrels. With certification of a new oil deposit by Ryder Scout, the growth was confirmed, said Petroleum & Energy minister, Rafael Ramirez.
The large-scale Magna reserve project that is presently being implemented yields impressive results, seeing huge hydrocarbon fuel deposits in catchment area of Orinoco River, he said.
Experts have predicted huge oil reserves totaling to around 45 billion barrels at one of the 27 oilfield blocks. This has allowed augmenting the preliminary figures of heavy & super-heavy oil extractable reserves in Orinoco River region to 260 billion barrels, said Ramirez.
Venezuelan govt. estimated that Orinoco River's extra heavy crude deposits might be as high as a trillion barrels. Following conformation of these estimates, this oil belt would be the largest oil-bearing belt in the world and would make Venezuela a nation with largest proven oil reserves in the world totaling to over 300 billion barrels.
"And with increased income taxes & loyalties compounding the high oil prices, revenues from oil will account for nearly 50 % of govt. revenue by 2007, totaling around US $ 22 billion," said an analyst at RNCOS.
Regarding oil prices, Ramirez said that OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) has succeeded to avoid a sharp decrease in prices by curbing the production, but OPEC needs to cut down more output to maintain price stability.
OPEC cut down the production by around 1.2 million barrels per day for November & Ramirez said, OPEC should slash production by another 0.3 million barrels per day. Venezuela is among OPEC's top price hawks, constantly arguing for cutting down production in order to defend high oil prices.
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