Officially, Venezuela has the world’s largest crude oil reserves with 303 billion barrels of proved reserves. In reality, a lot of this oil is extra-heavy crude oil, and may not be economical to produce at prevailing prices. Thus, some portion of Venezuela’s barrels may in reality no longer be in the “proved reserves” category.
Consider that Venezuela’s proved reserves jumped from 80 billion barrels in 2005 to 300 billion barrels in 2014. The main reason for that wasn’t a bunch of new oil discoveries. No, it was the fact that oil prices had reached triple digits, making Venezuela’s extra heavy oil economical to produce. In other words, “resources” (the oil in the ground) were moved into the “proved reserves” (oil that is economical to produce) category.
