Venezuela surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the world's largest holder of proven oil reserves, a resource that President Hugo Chavez promises to tap if he gets re-elected in October.
The South American country's deposits were at 296.5 billion barrels at the end of last year, data from BP Plc show. Saudi Arabia held 265.4 billion barrels, BP said yesterday in its annual Statistical Review of World Energy. The 2010 estimate for Venezuela increased from 211.2 billion in the previous report.
Chavez wants to more than double the country's oil- production capacity to 6 million barrels a day by 2019, according to a government plan released June 12. The world's biggest oil-exporting nations faced a 15 percent slump in crude prices last month, the biggest decline since December 2008, on speculation Europe's debt crisis would derail the global economic recovery.
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