::I added a section on Russia to placate those who feel it should be mentioned. The Russians are possibly kidding themselves. Although it has by far the largest natural gas reserves, Russia has only the 8th largest oil reserves, ranking between Venezuela and the US. Unlike the top 7 resource holders, their reserves to production ratio is not very good. Russia is a very old oil producing area, and they have already produced most of their oil. At current rates they have only 17 years of production left out of their existing reserves, so they should be exploring enthusiastically to prevent a production decline. In communist era, they did severe damage to their oil fields by overproducing them, and at current rates they may be continuing to do  damage to them. Possibly a little more restraint and planning for an oil-free future would be advisable (given their enormous gas reserves.)