• Global 1P reserves grow by 5Bbbls
• A total of 1.572 trillion barrels produced in past 124 years

Sopuruchi Onwuka

The world is not really coming to the end of petroleum consumption as more exploration and production investments achieve significant reserves additions that will eventually seek commercial returns from the waiting market.

Petroleum exploration investments, according to Rystad, is driven by global oil demand which is projected to increase by 680,000 barrels per day (680kb/d) in 2025 and 700 kb/d in 2026, to reach 104.4 mb/d despite weaker-than-expected demand in China, India and Brazil in recent months.

The appetite for petroleum energy, reports show, is not abating even after the world consumed significant 1.572 trillion barrels of crude oil in the past 124 years from 1900 to 2024. But the rate in the growth of greener energy development will determine how quickly the currently high petroleum consumption rate might decelerate to moderate demand and stabilize the market.

Rystad Energy’s latest research shows the global amount of discovered, recoverable oil resources has increased by 5 billion barrels over the past year, even though 30 billion barrels were produced globally in 2024.

The report by Rystad Energy also shows that global recoverable oil resources, including estimates for undiscovered fields, stabilized at approximately 1.5 trillion barrels. It amplifies the jumps in global demand for petroleum energy in the face of climate action and campaigns for energy transition.

The most significant revision over the last 10 years, Rystad stated, has been in yet-to-find resources, where its projection has been reduced by 456 billion barrels.

“This is due to a steep decline in frontier exploration, unsuccessful shale developments outside the Americas and a doubling in offshore costs over the past five years. Rystad Energy expects reserve replacements from new conventional oil projects to be less than 30% of production over the next five years, while exploration would replace only about 10%.

According to Rystad, a total of 1,572 billion barrels of crude oil were produced historically from 1900 through 2024, leaving the world’s proven oil reserves to equal only 14 years of production at the rate of current consumption.

OPEC+ crude oil production¹
million barrels per day

	Jun 2025 Supply	Jul 2025 Supply	Jul 2025 vs Target	Jul 2025 Implied Target1	Sustainable Capacity2	Eff Spare Cap vs Jul3
Algeria	0.93	0.89	-0.05	0.94	0.99	0.1
Congo	0.26	0.24	-0.04	0.28	0.27	0.03
Equatorial Guinea	0.05	0.04	-0.03	0.07	0.06	0.02
Gabon	0.25	0.22	0.04	0.18	0.22	0.0
Iraq	4.28	4.32	0.34	3.99	4.87	0.54
Kuwait	2.66	2.64	0.18	2.46	2.88	0.24
Nigeria	1.51	1.48	-0.02	1.5	1.42	0
Saudi Arabia	9.8	9.52	-0.02	9.53	12.11	2.59
UAE	3.47	3.53	0.37	3.16	4.28	0.75
Total OPEC-9	23.2	22.88	0.78	22.1	27.1	4.27
Iran4	3.08	3.27			3.8
Libya4	1.2	1.23			1.23	0
Venezuela4	0.94	0.83			0.89	0.07
Total OPEC	28.42	28.21			33.02	4.34
Azerbaijan	0.46	0.46	-0.09	0.55	0.48	0.02
Kazakhstan	1.84	1.79	0.4	1.39	1.8	0.01
Mexico5	1.46	1.47			1.59	0.12
Oman	0.76	0.77	0.01	0.76	0.85	0.08
Russia	9.23	9.2	0.1	9.1	9.4
Others 6	0.8	0.81	-0.05	0.87	0.86	0.04
Total Non-OPEC	14.54	14.51	0.36	12.68	14.97	0.27
OPEC+ 18 in Nov 2022 deal5	36.28	35.92	1.15	34.77	40.48	4.42
Total OPEC+	42.97	42.72			47.99	4.61

“If future global oil demand increases, as forecast by OPEC, supply will likely struggle to meet demand, even at attractive, high prices for producers. However, if the energy transition continues to make inroads, future oil demand is expected to fall, particularly with the greater electrification of transport vehicles, as seen in China,” Rystad noted.

The industry advisory firm stated that it would however require a value returning market to guarantee production of existing and future reserves, a situation, it noted, calls for technologies that improve operating cost efficiency, enhanced decarbonization and creative funding.

Chief Analyst at Rystad Energy, Per Magnus Nysveen, stated: “Full extraction of these oil resources will require oil prices stabilizing at higher levels and further estimate increases will require new technologies to lower production costs. Over the next decades, the capital needed will likely not be available to meet continuously increasing oil demand, service prices could skyrocket, and there will likely be limited appetite for innovations to sustain such high emissions from oil.”

If oil demand rises over the next few decades, the advisory company stated, global recoverable resources will not offer the supply needed to meet it, creating a constrained economic environment that wouldn’t be able to compete with less capital-intensive energy sources.

“As a result, Rystad Energy does not expect oil demand to continue to grow steeply towards 2050, with the company’s analysis concluding that the worst-case warming scenarios evaluated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will not materialize.

Referring to Rystad Energy’s highest scenario, which leads to a 2.5°C rise in temperature, future CO2 emissions from fossil fuels will be limited to 2,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide (GtCO2), of which 900 Gt will come from coal, 600 Gt from oil, and 500 Gt from natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs). This is 500 Gt less CO2 than the IPCC’s mid-scenario, which leads to 2.8°C of warming.

Deputy Head of Analysis at Rystad Energy, Artem Abramov, stated: “In a world with flat or growing demand after 2030, another oil super-cycle would be needed. This scenario would require a substantial increase in frontier exploration and drilling success as well as accelerated deployment of secondary recovery and full-scale development of non-core shale plays in North America and globally.”

According to Rystad, annual growth of 600 kb/d in 2Q25 occurred entirely in the non-OECD despite weaker-than-expected demand in China, India and Brazil in recent months, while consumption in the OECD was flat, with Japan at multi-decade lows.

Global oil supply was largely unchanged in July at 105.6 mb/d, Rystad stated; with a 230 kb/d fall in OPEC+ output offset by an equal increase in non-OPEC+. It added that  higher OPEC+ targets announced for September help boost global oil supply growth to 2.5 mb/d this year and 1.9 mb/d in 2026, of which non-OPEC+ accounts for 1.3 mb/d and 1 mb/d, respectively.

“Global crude runs will approach an all-time high of 85.6 mb/d in August, with 3Q25 annual growth of 1.6 mb/d well ahead of the 1H25 average increase of just 130 kb/d. Throughputs have been raised to 83.6 mb/d (+670 kb/d y-o-y) for 2025 and 84 mb/d (+470 kb/d) next year, reflecting stronger data for the OECD and China as well as robust refining margins, which soared to 15-month highs in July.

“Global observed oil inventories rose for the fifth consecutive month in June, up 28.1 mb m-o-m, or almost 900 kb/d, to reach a 46-month high of 7 836 mb. The increase was underpinned by swelling volumes of oil on water, and rising stocks of both Chinese crude and US gas liquids, while other inventories mostly declined. OECD industry stocks fell by 28.8 mb in June to hover near decade-lows of 2 758 mb, 88 mb below a year ago.

“Benchmark crude oil prices were largely unchanged in July, with North Sea Dated oscillating around $70/bbl as easing trade tensions and tighter sanctions against Russia were set against the outlook for a comfortably supplied market. By early August, however, prices tumbled by $3/bbl to $67/bbl after OPEC+ announced plans to fully unwind its 2.2 mb/d voluntary output cuts by September,” the company stated.