Assessing oil resources in the Middle East and North Africa

Some energy experts are concerned that the world will soon face a global crisis to dwindling oil resources and a peak in production. This paper analyses the concern by estimating a cumulative supply curve for conventional oil in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It does so by attaching production costs to the endowment volumes of oil in the region, including volumes from provinces not previously assessed. A Variable Shape Distribution model is used to estimate the volumes of the previously unassessed provinces. The findings show that MENA oil should last far longer than some concerned experts claim. In addition, the production costs are lower than current market oil prices and significantly lower than prices observed in mid-2008