Americas News
Shale Oil Raises World Crude Estimates by 11%
Including shale resources in assessing the world's oil supply could increase the total available volume by 11 percent over previous estimates, according to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
The report assesses shale formations within and outside of the U.S., estimating that there are 345 billion barrels of world shale oil resources and 7,299 trillion cubic feet of shale gas resources available worldwide.
Shale resources represent 10 percent of total oil resources worldwide and 32 percent of natural gas, although not of all these "technically recoverable" resources are necessarily economically viable for extraction, according to BBC News.
"The reserves are one thing, but the ability to scale up the production for those reserves is another thing, which is not as straightforward in many parts of the world as it has proved to be in the US," said Jan Stuart, head of energy research at Credit Suisse.
Russia has the most shale oil reserves, more than either the U.S. or China, at 75 billion barrels, the report finds.
A report earlier this year by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found that shale oil production could boost the world economy by up to $2.7 trillion within the next 12 years.
