Oil & Gas Leaders Magazine: Sustainability Through Innovation in UAE's Oil and Gas Industry

Iran Still World’s
Largest Natural
Gas Player
A new report shows Iran still has the world’s largest
reserves of natural gas and is closely followed by
market rivals Russia and then Qatar.
The global energy giant British Petroleum (BP) in its
annual report on world energy reserves put Iran’s
natural gas reserves at 33.5 trillion cubic meters
(tcm).
The figure was obtained as a result of estimates
obtained at the end of 2016 and BP said in its report
– named “Statistical Review of World Energy 2017”
– that Iran’s reserves had remained unchanged from
last year.
BP further put the reserves of Russia – Iran’s closest
rival in terms of gas reserves - at 32.3 tcm.
The world’s third largest reserves at 24.3 tcm belong
to Qatar with which Iran’s shares its huge South Pars
gas field.
Iran’s gas reserves account for 18 percent of world’s
total. The reserves of Russia and Qatar account
for 17.3 percent and 13 percent of the global total,
respectively.
In terms of production, the United States maintained
its market supremacy in 2016 by producing around
750 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas.
Russia came next with about 580 bcm and was
followed by Iran at 202.4 bcm.
The next biggest producers were Qatar (181.2 bcm),
Canada (152 bcm), China (139 bcm), Norway (116
bcm) and Saudi Arabia (109 bcm).
According to the BP report, Iran also has the world’s
fourth largest reserves of crude oil at 158.4 billion
barrels (bbl).
At the top of the list stands Venezuela with 300 bbl
and is followed by Saudi Arabia (266.5 bbl) and
Canada (171.5 bbl).
Iran is followed by Iraq (153 bbl), Russia (109 bbl),
and Kuwait (101.5 bbl) in the league of countries
with triple digit oil reserves.
12 Oil & Gas Leaders • July 2017