Venezüella, Ortadoğu dışında en büyük petrol rezervlerine sahip ülke. Amerikan Yerbilimsel Araştırmalar Kurumu (İng. USGS) tarafından hazırlanan bir çalışmada, Venezüella’nın Orinoco Petrol Kuşağı’ndaki mevcut rezervin düşünülenin iki katı olduğu ileri sürülüyor. USGS’nin yeni tahminine göre, bu bölge ortalama 513 milyar varil ham petrol rezervine sahip olabilir.
Suudi Arabistan’da 260 milyar varil potansiyel petrol rezervi olduğu tahmin ediliyor. Eğer Venezüella için tahmin edilen 380 ile 652 milyar varil rezervin gerçekçi olduğu kanıtlanabilirse, bu Venezüella’nın Suudi Arabistan’ın iki katı rezerve sahip olduğu anlamına gelecek ve petrol rezervi açısından dünya sıralamasını değiştirecek.
Venezüellalı petrol uzmanı ve ülkenin devlet petrol şirketinin eski yönetim kurulu üyelerinden Gustavo Coronel bu iddiaya kuşkuyla yaklaşıyor. Coronel’a göre bu petrolün büyük kısmını çıkarmak ekonomik olmayabilir.
New Research on How Much is Currently Recoverable
An estimated 513 billion barrels of technically recoverable heavy oil are in Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt.This area contains one of the world’s largest recoverable oil accumulations, and this assessment is the first to identify how much is technically recoverable (producible using currently available technology and industry practices).
Worldwide consumption of petroleum was 85.4 million barrels per day in 2008. The three largest consuming countries were United States with 19.5 million barrels per day, China with 7.9 million barrels per day, and Japan with 4.8 million barrels per day.
“Knowing the potential for extractable resources from this tremendous oil accumulation, and others like it, is critical to our understanding of the global petroleum potential and informing policy and decision makers,” said USGS Energy Resources Program Coordinator Brenda Pierce. “Accumulations like this one were previously very difficult to produce, but advances in technology and new understandings in geology allow us to assess how much is now technically recoverable.”
“Heavy oil is a type of oil that is very thick and therefore does not flow very easily,” said USGS scientist Christopher Schenk. “As a result, specialized production and refining processes are needed to generate petroleum products, but it is still oil and can generate many of the same products as other types of oil.”
This is the largest accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. The estimated petroleum resources in the Orinoco Oil Belt range from 380 to 652 billion barrels of oil (at a 95 and 5 percent chance of occurrence, respectively). The Orinoco Oil Belt is located in the East Venezuela Basin Province.
Kaynakça
BBCTürkçe, 2010. Venezüela’nın petrol rezervleri, BBC Türkçe Servisi, Londra, İngiltere, http://www.bbc.co.uk/turkce/haberler/2010/01/100123_venezuela.shtml, 24 Ocak 2010 tarihinde ulaşılmıştır.
USGS, 2010. Technical Announcement: Venezuela Holds One of the Largest Oil Accumulations, United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior, Reston, Virginia, United States of America, http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2386, accessed at 24th January 2010.
