Venezuela has world’s largest oil reserves

Venezuela had the world’s largest oil reserves in late 2011, totaling 296.5 billion barrels (about 18% of world reserves). Saudi Arabia had 265.4 billion barrels (16%), Lenta.ru reports.

Canada had 175.2 billion barrels (10%), Russia had 88.2 billion barrels (5.3%), according to BP.

World oil reserves increased by 1.9% last year to 1.65 trillion barrels. The Middle East has 795 billion barrels of oil reserves (48.1%).