Brian wrote:
> you've got a stash of oil there perhaps bigger than is under
> Saudi Arabia, and you've got those young needy former Soviet
> republics that desperately want cash.
I believe that is overstating the situation by quite a bit.
According to the DOE EIA country analysis brief (based on
Russian estimates), Afghanistan's oil reserves stand at
~95 million barrels. That isn't worth sneezing at.
The total proven oil reserves for the entire Caspian Sea region
are 17-34 billion barrels (comparable to the U.S. (22 BB) or
the North Sea (17 BB). Estimates of "potential" reserves
range from 70-200 BB, these are fairly uncertain (see the Rand
report below).
So Afghanistan is a drop in the bucket and the entire central
Asian region, while nothing to sneeze at is dwarfed by Saudi
Arabia (> 250 BB) and Iraq (> 100 BB).
According to the BBC article (below), oil reserves are:
Saudi Arabia: 260 BB
Iraq: 110 BB
UAE: 95 BB
Kuwait: 95 BB
Iran: 92 BB
Venezuela: 66 BB
Russia: 49 BB
Mexico: 27 BB
China: 24 BB
U.S.A.: 23 BB
Kazakhstan: 14 BB
Norway: 10 BB
So it is going to take a *lot* of discovery in the Central Asia
region to balance off Middle East reserves/supplies.
Robert
Sources:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/hot.html
(this discusses problems of getting oil out of central Asia).
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/nonopec.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/pgulf.html
http://www.cnie.org/nle/eng-72.html
http://www.oilsurvey.com/news/opec.htm
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1074/mr1074.chap6.pdf
http://www.arabia.com/iraq/business/article/english/0,5508,60043,00.html
http://www.heritage.org/library/execmemo/em663.html
http://www.peacemagazine.org/9805/oil-jb.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/newsid_677000/677610.stm
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