British Petroleum view of the dominance of Middle East oil reserves.

This perspective is typical of the oil industry and the US Dept. of Energy and is misleading.

A similar chart amended to include USGS estimates of ultimately recoverable oil reserves presents a more accurate impression of overall world oil reserves.

The "unconventional" oil reserve of South America is the Venezuelan Orinoco heavy oil belt with one to four trillion (with a "T") barrels of oil.