BP says world's proved oil reserves fell in 2008

The world's proved oil reserves fell in 2008, the first drop in a decade, oil company BP PLC said Wednesday.

Proved reserves of 1.258 trillion barrels in 2008 was 3 billion barrels less than in 2007, the company said.

Meanwhile, energy consumption by members of the advanced economies _ defined by membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development _ fell behind consumption by all other nations including China for the first time, BP said in its Statistical Review of World Energy.

«In 2008 the world was no longer supply-constrained, as production growth exceeded that of consumption for all fossil fuels, particularly later in the year,» Tony Hayward, BP's group chief executive, said in an introduction to the report.

«Our data confirms that the world has enough proved reserves of oil, natural gas and coal to meet the world's needs for decades to come,» Hayward added.

«The challenges the world faces in growing supplies to meet future demand are not below ground, they are above ground. They are human, not geological.

BP said increases in proved oil reserves in Vietnam, India and Egypt were offset by falls in Russia, Norway and China.

The company said in its annual global energy report that the proved reserves figure for 2007 had been revised upward by 23.1 billion barrels.

Middle Eastern producers accounted for 59.9 percent of global reserves, led by Saudi Arabia with 21 percent.

The 2007 figure has been revised higher by 23.1 billion barrels, with the largest upward revisions in Venezuela and Angola, BP said.

Global oil production increased by 0.4 percent in 2008 on the strength of a 2.7 percent boost in output from OPEC countries, the report said.

Non-OPEC production fell by 1.4 percent, the biggest drop since 1992.
Saudi Arabia increased production by 400,000 barrels per day and Iraq by 280,000 bpd, BP said. Mexico had the largest decrease at 310,000 bpd; Russian output fell by 90,000 bpd, the first decline in 10 years.

Global consumption of coal rose by a below-average 3.1 percent, but coal was the fastest-growing fuel for the sixth year in a row, the report said. China's consumption rose by 6.8 percent, accounting for 85 percent of global growth.
Nuclear output fell by 0.7 percent, hit by a 10 percent drop in Japanese nuclear production resulting from an earthquake in 2007.

Global hydroelectric generation grew by 2.8 percent, with China setting the pace with a 20.3 percent increase.

Global solar energy capacity rose by 69 percent and wind power capacity rose 30 percent. The United States passed Germany as the wind energy leader for the first time, with a 49.5 percent increase in 2008, the report said.