REF - World's Largest COAL Reserves

According to British Petroleum's (BP) 2007 statistical review on World Energy, the World's Largest PROVEN COAL RESERVES as of year end 2006:

Rank / Country - Total Reserves…WW Share %
*World – 909,064 GIGATONS…100%

1 United States of America - 246,643…27.1% WW Share
2 Russia - 157,010…17.3%
3 China - 114,500…12.6%
4 India - 92,445…10.2%
5 Australia - 78,500…8.6%
6 South Africa - 48,750…5.4%
7 Ukraine - 34,153…3.8%
8 Kazakhstan - 31,279…3.4%
9 Poland - 14,000…1.5%
10 Brazil - 10,113…1.1%
11 Germany - 6,739…0.7%
12 Colombia - 6,611…0.7%
13 Canada - 6,578…0.7%
14 Czech Republic - 5,552…0.6%
15 Indonesia - 4,968…0.5%
16 Turkey - 4,186…0.5%
17 Greece - 3,900…0.4%
18 Hungary - 3,357…0.4%
19 Pakistan - 3,050…0.3%
20 Bulgaria - 2,187…0.2%
21 Thailand - 1,354…0.1%
22 North Korea - 600…0.1%
23 New Zealand - 571…0.1%
24 Spain - 530…0.1%
25 Zimbabwe - 502…0.1%
26 Romania - 494…0.1%
27 Venezuela – 479…0.1%

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Other Notes:
*The United States Energy Information Administration gives world reserves as 998 billion short tons (equal to 905 gigatonnes) with approximately half of it being 'hard coal'...at the current production rate, this would last 164 years.

*The 998 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves estimated by the Energy Information Administration are equal to about 4,417 BBOE (billion barrels of oil equivalent).

*The U.S. is the 'Saudi Arabia' of COAL...owning nearly 30% of the world's proven coal reserves !

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*Lastly, check out the below interesting diagram courtesy of Wiki outlining WHERE the U.S.'s country coal reserves are located:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Us_coal_regions_1996.png

Data Courtesy: Wikipedia.com, snagged on 4/30/08.