How can the US be producing nearly 13 billion barrels of petroleum a year when their proven oil reserves are less than 50 billion?

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How can the US be producing nearly 13 billion barrels of petroleum a year when their proven oil reserves are less than 50 billion?

In: Planetary Science

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

We produce 13 million barrels a day. That’s about 4 billion barrels a year. So, 4 billion divided by 50 billion means the US produces about 8% of it’s reserves each year.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Finding more reserves. “Proven reserves” means “oil we’ve discovered but haven’t collected yet”. Not “we know for sure that’s all there is”.