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Middle East Oil Reserves By Country and Rank

From Pierre Tristam,
Your Guide to Middle East Issues.
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The terms "Middle East" and "oil-rich" are often taken together as synonyms of each other--as if every country in the Middle East were an oil-rich, oil-producing exporter. The reality is at odds with that assumption.

The Greater Middle East adds up to more than 30 countries. Only a few of those have significant oil reserves and produce oil enough to slake their energy needs and export oil as well. Several have minor oil reserves. Below is a list of oil-dry countries, followed, below the break, by a table ranking the Middle East's oil-rich countries according to known oil reserves, followed by :

The Oil-Dry Nations of the Greater Middle East:

  • Afghanistan
  • Bahrain
  • Cyprus
  • Comoros
  • Djibouti
  • Eritrea
  • Israel
  • Jordan
  • Lebanon
  • Mauritania
  • Morocco
  • Somalia

The Mideast's Oil Produces, by Known Reserves

RankCountry Reserves
(billions of barrels)
1 Saudi Arabia 262.3
2 Iran 136.3
3 Iraq 115
4 Kuwait 101
5 United Arab Emirates 97.8
6 Libya 41.5
7 Kazakhstan 30
8 Qatar 15.2
9 Algeria 12.70
10 Azerbaijan 7
11 Oman 5.5
12 Sudan 5
13 Egypt 3.7
14 Yemen 3
15 Syria 2.5
16 Turkmenistan 0.6
17 Uzbekistan 0.6
18 Tunisia 0.4
19 Pakistan 0.3
Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Oil & Gas Journal; 2007 figures.

Note: The figures above represent the rankings of oil reserves only in the Middle East. For perspective, see the rankings of the world's top oil producers.
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