Kuwait ranked seventh in the world in terms of the volume of global oil reserves with 102 billion barrels, with a market share of 6%, according to data published by the German data company Statista.
A local Arabic daily said Saudi Arabia is the second biggest in terms of the volume of global oil reserves with 298 billion barrels but stood tall among other oil producing nations in terms of exports of crude oil in 2020, with a market share of 17 percent.
Statista monitored the most prominent countries in terms of the volume of global oil reserves, as only two countries accounted for more than a third of global reserves.
Venezuela leads the world in terms of oil reserves of 304 billion barrels, but it is not traditionally known as a major exporter of this commodity.
However, the other countries included in the list, Canada, for example, was the third largest oil reserves country until the end of 2020 with 168 billion barrels, representing 10% of the global reserves, while the value of their oil exports was 48 billion dollars in the same year, making it the sixth in the world in the export of oil.
The Russian-Ukrainian war raised many questions about the future of global energy supplies, especially after US President Joe Biden signed an executive order last week banning imports of gas, coal and oil from Russia to the United States, making it the first country in the current alliance against Russian President Vladimir Putin to resort to this matter in the series of sanctions against Russia.
As the crisis continues to escalate, some European countries still exclude the energy option from the series of sanctions imposed on Russia, as they rely mainly on Russian oil and gas supplies, which constitute more than a third of their energy imports, despite attempts by some countries, led by Germany to reduce their dependence on Russia, which supplies more than 55% of its gas needs and more than 35% of its oil and coal.
In the event of a complete ban on Russian oil imports, this would enhance the dependence of importing countries on Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and Iraq.
Energy industry experts view Biden’s move as largely symbolic. For example, US imports of crude oil from Russia accounted for only 8% of total imports of that specific commodity in 2021, and the US produced 33.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas versus imports of 2.5 trillion cubic feet in 2020.