OPEC Oil Reserves
No one truly knows how much any OPEC nation produces, because with their widely utilized “Enron accounting” measures, a true stock of the reserves is impossible to gauge.
OPEC nations are known to be less then accurate when reporting their reserve figures, even our ally Saudi Arabia has been known to fudge the books.
Below is a chart showing OPEC nations reported oil reserves on a year by year basis. Notice how OPEC nations doubled their reserve estimates around 1988. This was done without any major new oil discoveries. Somehow their oil reserves magically and miraculously increased twofold.
When it became economically expedient to exaggerate the size of oil reserves, OPEC nations immediately claimed a doubling of proven reserves. And rather than run the risk of losing a share of their quota, there’s a strange reluctance to admit that producing oil actually depletes reserves.
