page_title: Reserves-to-production ratio
section_title: Fossil fuel reserve-to-production ratios
hierarchical_section_title: Reserves-to-production ratio / Fossil fuel reserve-to-production ratios
caption_attribution_description: English: Ratio of proved reserves to annual production for dry natural gas in the United States (US Energy Information Administration data).
context_page_description: The reserves-to-production ratio is the remaining amount of a non-renewable resource, expressed in time. While applicable to all natural resources, the RPR is most commonly applied to fossil fuels, particularly petroleum and natural gas. The reserve portion of the ratio is the amount of a resource known to exist in an area and to be economically recoverable. The production portion of the ratio is the amount of resource produced in one year at the current rate.
  RPR = /
  This ratio is used by companies and government agencies in forecasting the future availability of a resource to determine project life, future income, employment, etc., and to determine whether more exploration must be undertaken to ensure continued supply of the resource. Annual production of a resource can usually be calculated to quite an accurate number. However, reserve quantities can only be estimated to varying degrees of accuracy, depending on the availability of information and on the methods used to evaluate them.
  A simplistic interpretation of the ratio has led to many false predictions of imminent "running out of oil" since the early years of the oil industry in the 1800s.
context_section_description: Reserve-to-production ratios may be calculated for individual countries or globally for specific resources. Oil, coal, and gas are the three most important fuels for powering the modern world. These resources are not uniformly distributed over the earth, so some countries have larger reserves than others. Due to the uncertainty of the reserves numbers, estimates of RPR vary widely. Following table is from the data of the year 2015 by BP statistical review.
caption: Ratio of proved reserves to production for dry natural gas in the United States (US Energy Information Administration data).
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