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Oil giant BP, still recovering from last year's disastrous spill in the Gulf of Mexico, now has its sights set on the vast untapped oil wealth thought to exist beneath the Arctic ice.Its strategic global alliance with Russia's Rosneft gives it access to three licence blocks on the Russian Arctic continental shelf covering about 125,000 square kilometres, similar in size to the UK North Sea. BP already has a 50% interest in TNK-BP and has worked in Alaska since 1969."We are very pleased to be joining Russia's leading oil company to jointly explore some of the most promising parts of the Russian Arctic, one of the world's last remaining unexplored basins," said BP's new chief executive, Bob Dudley.Data shows almost a third of the world's undiscovered gas and around 13% of undiscovered oil could be in the Arctic. The US Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that between 44 and 157 billion barrels of recoverable oil exist there. But while these huge resources could be significant to the Arctic nations, "they are probably not sufficient to shift the world oil balance away from the Middle East".BP's own Statistical Review of World Energy shows the world's supply of oil grew to 1,333.1 billion barrels in 2009, enough to power the globe for another 46 years.Proved oil reserves rose by 0.7 billion barrels year on year following increases in Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.It puts Saudi Arabia at the top of the pile with almost a fifth of all known reserves - no prices for guessing that one. The Middle East as a whole accounts for almost 57%. Iran is in fourth place with 10.3%, Iran has 8.6% and tiny Kuwait 7.6%. But Iraq could overtake Iran if October's upwardly revised reserve estimate is firmed up.Venezuela kept Central and South America as the second most important region. It has 12.9% of the world's supply and the region some 14.9%.But Brazil has seen a rapid increase in drilling activity in recent years - our own BG Group has had incredible success in the Santos basin - causing the country's reserves to swell to 12.9bn barrels. They were 12.8bn in 2008, 8.2bn in 1999 and just 2.8bn 20 years ago. Kazakhstan, with a 3% share, is breathing down Russia's neck where reserves actually fell during the year, leaving it with 5.6% of all the planet's oil.Africa's challenge is headed by Libya (3.3%) and Nigeria (2.8%).The hunt for fuel has stepped up a gear over the past ten years. An extra 247 billion barrels of oil has been found since 1999, an increase of 23%. In the previous decade reserves had risen just 8%.But it seems the game is getting harder. The improvement in 2009 was one of the smallest in recent years, lagging far behind the 6.3% increase in 2008, 1.6% rise in 2007 and 1% growth the year before that.