Oil reserves denote the amount of crude oil located in a particular region that can be recovered with current technological constraints and at a cost that is financially feasible at the current price of oil.

Venezuela has the largest amount of oil reserves in the world with 300.9 billion barrels. Saudi Arabia has the second-largest amount of oil reserves in the world with 266.5 billion barrels. Despite Venezuela’s large supply of natural resources, the country still struggles economically and its people are going hungry. Venezuela and Saudi Arabia have populations of comparable size; however, Saudi Arabia’s economy is twice as large.

Sanctions Don’t Help the Venezuelan People: The endless string of sanctions imposed on Venezuela first by the US and later by the EU and Canada has irreversible consequences.  Photo: Venezuelanalysis
(Photo with commentary added  by Rise Up Times)

Unfortunately, although Venezuela has the most oil reserves in the world, most of their oil is offshore or far underground and is considered to be dense. The price of oil determines whether or not extracting it is profitable, and so the cost of extracting the oil in Venezuela’s reserves is too high to be profitable. Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves, on the other hand, are close to the surface and on the land.

Below is a table of each country’s oil reserves in billions of barrels.

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