Energy Study. Reserves, Resources and Availability of Energy Resources 2013 - Summary

Global share of all energy resources in terms of consumption (BP 2013) as well as the production, reserves and resources of non-renewable energy resources as at the end of 2012 Source: BGR

The Energy study 2013 – Reserves, resources and availability of energy resources serves as the basis for providing advice on commodity industry aspects to the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) and German industry as a whole.

Considered overall on the basis of the knowledge currently available, there are still extensive volumes of fossil fuels from a geological point of view. There is still enormous potential in all regions around the world on the basis of an assessment of the global reserves and resources, and the already consumed energy resources. Whilst the potential has hardly been touched in the Austral-Asia, CIS and North America regions, even in Europe, only a small percentage has been produced to date. This wealth in commodities is primarily founded on the huge coal deposits which are present on all continents and, unlike conventional oil and gas, are not concentrated in very localised regions. This means that the Near East region which is extremely important in terms of oil and gas, only has a relatively minor total potential.

The largest proportion of the non-renewable global energy commodities is defined as resources, and exceeds the reserves by a factor of more than 10. This applies to all types of energy resources with the exception of conventional oil – a fact which highlights the special role played by this energy resource. The energy content of all reserves in 2012 totalled 39,910 GJ, and has therefore grown slightly despite an increase in production. When looked at in terms of extractable energy content, coal is the dominant energy resource, particularly in the case of resources, but also in terms of reserves. Despite a growth in production of 2.8 % overall, the produced volumes were balanced out by transferring resources to the reserves. In the overall visualisation of the global energy mix, i.e. the actual amount of consumed energy including renewables, there is still a significant dominance by fossil fuels. Year-on-year, there are only minor changes in the reserves of energy commodities, and this is primarily attributable to re-assessments of non-conventional hydrocarbons.

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