World crude oil reserves rose to 1.67tr barrels in 12

A pecialized economic report said that crude oil reserves in the world rose to about 1.67 trillion barrels in 2012, saying that rising oil prices have stimulated the international oil companies to expand their explorations. The report, issued by the Diplomatic Center for Strategic Studies, announced today that rising prices have stimulated companies to expand their explorations especially in remote areas, deep seas and oceans which were hard to explore in the past years. It pointed out that the development of technology in the fields of exploration, drilling and pipeline construction contributed to enable international companies to overcome the obstacles in those areas and to benefit from the oil wealth. It said that the Middle East region occupied 48.4 percent of those reserves of energy resources which play a pivotal role in the development of modern industries and promote tracks the global economy, indicating that the contribution of the Middle East countries in oil reserves declined from 56.1 percent in 2002 to 48.4 percent in 2012. I pointed out that the contribution of countries of South and Central America increased for the same period from 7.6 percent to 19.7 percent due to higher reserves of Venezuela to about 296 billion barrels, pointing to the doubts raised by the statistical bodies on the figures provided by Venezuela during the past three years.