I read a book on this called Twilight in the Desert.
Some fun facts from the book.
They revised their total proven reserves by 100 billion barrels to increase their opec quota in the 70's. At the time they claimed there had to be that much in the unexplored empty quarter, unfortunately there wasnt very much oil to be discovered.
They've been pumping out of their superfields like Ghawar for 50 years. Their secondary recovery involves pumping 10+ million of barrels of sea water straight out of the Persian gulf into the ground everyday.
During the Arab oil embargo, they likely damaged their reserves helping their buddies in the US. They went from 3ish million barrels a day to 10 in a very short amount of time, if you open the valve too wide you'll never get the maximum amount out over the long term.
They are a monarchy and SaudiAramco is under no obligation to divulge any information. Kind of scary that a country that has provided 1/8 barrels of oil ever consumed can hide their data.
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