The World's Biggest Oil Reserves

Chances are your energy needs are going to flow from one of these 10 fields in the future.

HOUSTON — This month Iraq will finalize contracts with the likes of ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell and BP to develop some of its biggest oil fields. These giants are among the world’s last remaining pockets of so-called “easy oil.” They don’t require ultradeep drilling or innovative production techniques, just the application of Big Oil know-how. No wonder the oil companies agreed to develop Iraq’s fields without even getting an ownership stake in the fields and collecting as little as $1.15 per barrel recovered.

Given the size of Iraq’s undeveloped giants there are no technical reasons why within 10 years the country can’t supplant both Iran and Russia to become the world’s No. 2 oil producer after Saudi Arabia. No wonder Iraq holds three of the top 10 fields of the future.

The world gets its daily ration of 85 million barrels of oil from more than 4,000 fields. Most of these are small, less than 20,000 barrels per day. Giants, producing more than 100,000 bpd, account for just 3%. Then there’s the megafields that gush out 1 million bpd. These are the most important sources of energy in the world–fields worth fighting over. In figuring the top 10 fields of the future, we’re not interested in most of the giants of yesteryear, and not necessarily even the giants of today. Just the giants of tomorrow–those fields that might not even be producing yet, but will likely be doing better than 1 million bpd a decade from now.

Forbes