The region’s estimate is about a third of the $200 trillion value of the global oil and gas reserves, according to the QNB Capital report released here yesterday.
To put $65 trillion in context, it is equivalent to 47 times the GCC’s estimated GDP in 2011, or 93 per cent of global GDP. It is also 125 times the estimated $521 billion that the region’s governments received in oil and gas revenue during 2011, the report said.
These estimates are, however, only indicative as hydrocarbons prices are volatile and hard to predict given that they are influenced by a number of factors, it added.
The rest of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region has the next largest share of global hydrocarbon reserves (23 per cent), particularly in Iraq and Iran, followed by Europe and Eurasia (16 per cent), mainly Russia and Kazakhstan.
In volume terms, the GCC’s 495 billion barrels of oil account for 36 per cent of global oil reserves and its 42 trillion cubic metres of gas are 22 per cent of global gas reserves.
Splitting down the total hydrocarbon reserves by country shows that Saudi Arabia represents almost half the GCC total, followed by the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar which each have around a sixth of the total.
Qatar’s share is worth about $9.5 trillion. Oman has only 1.2 per cent of the regional total and Bahrain less than half that amount. QNB Capital also stated that its calculations may be an underestimate because new reserves will probably be found.
If the lower hydrocarbon prices recorded in 2009, which can be seen as a worst case scenario, were used in QNB Capital’s calculation, then the reserves would be worth $42 trillion.
As gas prices vary considerably between countries, unlike oil prices, QNB Capital assumed a gas price of about $7.5 per thousand cubic feet, an average of US, European and Asian pipeline and liquefied natural gas (LNG) import prices.
