The world's 932 giant oil and gas fields are considered those with 500 million barrels of ultimately recoverable oil or gas equivalent.[1] Geoscientists believe these giants account for 40 percent of the world's petroleum reserves. They are clustered in 27 regions of the world, with the largest clusters in the Persian Gulf and Western Siberian Basin. The past three decades reflect declines in discoveries of giant fields.[2] The present decade (2000-2010), however, reflects an upturn in discoveries and appears on track to be the third best for discovery of giant oil and gas fields in the 150 year history of modern oil and gas exploration.[3]
According to analysis led by Paul Mann of the University of Texas' Jackson School of Geosciences, almost all of the 932 giant oil and gas fields cluster within 27 regions, or about 30 percent of Earth's land surface. Since 2003, Mann and colleagues M.K. Horn and Ian Cross have tracked the giants on a map that highlights the tectonic and sedimentary basin maps of the 27 key regions. The map is in the public domain and available as a high-resolution pdf on the Web site of the Jackson School of Geosciences.[4]
Recent work in tracking giant oil and gas fields follows the earlier efforts of the late exploration geologist Michel T. Halbouty, who tracked trends in giant discoveries from the 1960s to 2004.
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