A total of 6.7 billion barrels of oil was produced in 2017, the lowest in more than 70 years, JPT magazine reported.. "We have not seen anything like this since the 1940s," said Sonya Mlada Passos, a senior analyst with the Norwegian company Rystad Energy.. Experts believe that a decrease in the explored oil reserves is associated with a sharp drop in the price of black gold.

According to Passos, out of a small amount of oil reserves found in 2017, about a billion barrels will never be produced, since at the current price level it is simply unprofitable. At the same time, experts emphasize that the deposits of raw materials found in the outgoing year reduced the volume of oil and gas produced by only 11%. For comparison, in 2012 this ratio exceeded 50%. In general, the last time the volume of oil and gas produced was equal to the number of newly discovered reserves in 2006. Nevertheless, in the past year, geologists have explored large oil fields in Senegal, Mexico and Guyana.