Saudi oil reserves may be overstated by 40%

"Stuart Staniford calls attention to this story from the Guardian:

The U.S. fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.

The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels-- nearly 40%.

Stuart also notes that in his own independent forensic analysis conducted in May 2007 (to which we called the attention of Econbrowser readers at the time), he estimated that remaining reserves in Ghawar (by far the Saudis' biggest and most important oil field) were overstated by 40%."

at http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2011/02/saudi_oil_reser.html