What is the difference between oil production and oil reserves?

HW question. Have no idea, just a short answer is fine, I have no clue what either are so.... Please respond within next 15 minutes.What is the difference between oil production and oil reserves?
Reserves are what is in the ground.





This is often based on an analysis of the geology of the area. It is normally an estimate.





PROVED reserves are different. Those are fields that we have actually tapped into and know are there, and we have better data on.





Production is how much is pumped out of the ground, normally measured in how much is produced each day.





Note, you would think that you could take the estimated reserves, divide by the amount that comes out of the ground each day, and get a good idea of when the oil or gas is going to run out. Lots of people do that, but in real life it never works out that way. A typical oil well leaves between 70 and 30 of the oil in the rock when it ';runs dry';...it has to do with the geology (Google ';porosity'; and ';permeability';). There are techniques called ';secondary production'; that can get at the oil that is left behind.





Lastly estimates of reserves are often inaccurate because they assume that drilling technolgy is static. This is not true. How to get oil out of rocks is a VERY involved science (Google Fracking) and we can do all sorts of things we couldn't do 30, or even 10 years ago...not just drilling deeper, but things that used to be exotic (like drilling horizontal wells, and directional drilling) are now routine. As our ability to drill gets better we can now access huge amounts of oil and gas that in the past we couldn't. (Google ';Barnett Shale';). This effectively increases our reserves.





So no, they aren't making any more oil, but they are making better ways to get at the oil that is already there...which increases the amount of oil and gas we can get at, and amounts to pretty much the same thing. What is the difference between oil production and oil reserves?
Economically speaking. Oil production is your money today. Oil reserves are your future money.
production is how much they are pumping out of ground per day or year or week. reserves is how much is in the ground that they own !