Venezuela's oil estimates doubled

Geologists with the United States Geological Survey report a new estimate of how much oil is “technically recoverable” from the Venezuelan oil sands,

The Venezuelan oil sands are well known to need considerable financial investments if they are to become productive. The New York Times reports a new assessment produced by the Unites States Geological Survey (USGS) indicates that there is more oil technically available than previously believed, in an area known as the Orinoco oil belt: 513 billion barrels of heavy oil. Venezuela claims it has the world’s biggest oil reserves and the Orinoco belt is essential to support hat claim. Saudi Arabia has 264 billion barrels. The main difference is the oil is Saudi Arabia is readily extracted, while the Orinoco’s oil sands are tougher to produce. Saudi officials state their potential resource base far exceeds their official reserves. Petroleos de Venezuela is the country’s state-owned company and it estimates the Orinoco belt held a total resource base of 1.3 trillion barrels of oil, however, only a fraction can be produced economically.