Where are the world's largest oil reserves located?

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world with more than 300 billion barrels in reserve. Saudi Arabia has the second-largest amount of oil reserves in the world with 297.5 billion barrels.

Despite Venezuela’s massive supply of natural resources, the country still struggles economically. Venezuela and Saudi Arabia have populations of comparable size; however, Saudi Arabia’s economy is twice as large. One of the main reasons for this disparity is the accessibility of each country’s oil reserves.

Although Venezuela has the most oil reserves in the world, most of its oil is offshore or far underground and is considered to be dense. As such, the cost of extracting the oil in Venezuela’s reserves using the technology currently available is too high to be profitable. Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves, on the other hand, are close to the surface and on land, which makes the oil much more accessible and the extraction process vastly more cost-effective. This, in turn, makes Saudi Arabia’s oil sector significantly more profitable.