The chart shows the percentage shares of proved crude oil reserves by world region. It eloquently tells that, although the Middle East has seen an erosion of its share, due largely to the significant findings in Canada in the early 2000's, the region is undoubtedly the richest in the world, accounting for a share of 55.6% (752.9 billion barrels) of about 1,475 billion barrels current world reserves. Reserves are particularly huge in Saudi Arabia (262.6 billion barrels), Iran (137 billion barrels), Iraq (115 billion barrels), Kuwait (104 billion barrels) and the United Arab Emirates (97.8 billion barrels).

Proved reserves figures should be handled with care. They are based on estimates provided by the countries and are subject to highly political biases – for instance, OPEC production quota negotiations take into account each country's reserves. This explains that reserves may remain stable in spite of uninterrupted extraction and ongoing prospecting in producers such as Kuwait (reserves of 96.5 billion barrels from 1992 to 2003) or the UAE (98.1 billion barrels from 1988 to 1996, and 97.8 from 1887 to 2011).

In North America, Canada reserves have grown at an annual rate of 11% to the level of 175.2 billion barrels, while the USA has already reached the stage of having to pump oil from its shrinking reserves. Most important reserves in South America are to be found in Venezuela (211 billion barrels). In Africa, they are located in Libya (46 billion barrels) and Nigeria (37 billion barrels). Russia, in Eurasia, still has sizable reserves (60 billion barrels) but they are decreasing.

The list of countries where the largest oil reserves are located resembles a selection of those troubled nations that fill prime time news bulletins and newspapers first page reports. War and violence, cabinet intriguing, international conspiracy, street unrest, and large scale murder seem indeed strongly correlated with sizable crude oil reserves. The rightly called oil curse.