Saudi Arabia which has about a quarter of the worlds oil reserves will run out of oil in about 70 years based on current production. If demand for oil increases and Saudi Arabia starts pumping out more oil then it could run out of its reserves a lot quicker. India and China and the rest of the developing world is continuing to consume more and more oil. The U.S is still consuming about quarter of world production of oil. Less new oil discoveries are being made. Most major discoveries were made in the 60’s. Oil production has probably peaked.
Unless the world starts cutting back on oil consumption we may be running out of oil in about 50 years.
^^ I think u are missing a important point, Saudi Arab has discovered large oil reserves in Rub-ul-Khali, ( or what they call it, the ARAMCO says these reserve are enough for next 500 years.
I think that all proven oil reserves have been reflected in my earlier post. I think the 500 years statement seems far fetched. If that was the case then Saudi Arabia would have oil reserves approaching 2 trillion barrels based on current Saudi production.
All alternatives (as of right now) are not practical enough to be used world wide. Oil Wars are coming. After that FRESH WATER war will be even more intense. ooo xciting times coming. We (humans) will either kill each other will actually learn to be CIVILIZED!
Really should control human population and learn to live WITH enviroment!
I think this end of oil age is still bit far away, without ignoring the fact that although the oil will be there, it wont be back to 10 - 15 $ per barrel.
With oil prices touching 130$ today, oil companies are more prepared to invest into technology by which they can enhance their recovery factors which for oil are traditionally around 25 to 30 % which means that around 70% of all oil discovered is still in ground. Some parts like North Sea have even higher recovery factors.
There was a presentation from ARAMCO recently which I attended at it shows that they are upto speed with R&D trying to improve and enhance fields life.
bush has asked saudi arabia to increase the production of the oil and they have said yes to the boss..to hell with other countries..as long as america is happy,everything is perfect.....
^ not that simple... Saudi's are smart too, after saying yes to boss they have turned around and said they wont increase production becuz this price hike is due to speculators and not supply and demand issue.
Yaar whenver it is said that we will run out of oil, what it really means is that at the current price of oil a certain percentage of the oil reserves is known or can be feasibly extracted, it does not mean there is no more oil. Oil wells loose pressue once they pass Hubert peak and after that the cost of extract oil increases as more oil is pumped out of the well, oil production from the well stops when the cost of extracting it becomes equal to its retail value, it does not mean the well has run out of oil. When estimates are given that there are so and so many billion barrels of oil remaining what it means is that at the present cost of oil this is what we can extract. As oil prices head upwards more capital is available to exploring oil. It also means a lot fo oil wells can again be operated because their cost will be less than the retail. More capital also means more investments in technology to research oil extraction from other sources or heavier crudes. Oil reservoirs in Canada, Caspian and South China sea are untouched for most part. Heavy crudes such as those that Venezuela has are not utilized because of the high costs of refining them and the oil sands of Canada are also not economically feasible enough for major production.
read this week's The Economist.
a huge article on oil imports and itch that industrial countries have because oil producing bedouin lands are jacking up the price of THEIR petroleum.
practically, all things happening in other countries is the cause for the gasoline price hike in US.
wonder why?
whose drama and whose characters are shining through
?!
Not to forget, the Bush administration is pushing for easing ban on exploration in North America. It is said that they have more oil than in middle east.
Not to forget, the Bush administration is pushing for easing ban on exploration in North America. It is said that they have more oil than in middle east.
are you talking about the oil thats in the arctic ocean? isnt that more of a case between russia, canada, denmark, usa ?
Forget the Bush and his goals for oil exploration, they are using the the current situation to exploit the public to try and open up more land and water areas for oil companies to reap more profits with little to no benefit for consumers.
Oil prices have been drastically pushed up by spectators and aren't justified. Solar power technology is rapidly advancing and as oil pushes further up the government no matter who is in charge will be forced to bring a 'new deal' to the U.S. energy policy. One that commits dollars and resources in amounts that will bring changes to the energy landscape of the world. Personally I'd like to see an additional tax placed on gas right now, why wait until gas hits $7.00? Since we've become a reactionary society this is the only way to make things happen and the quicker it happens the better and while there will be birthing pains as we enter this new era it is necessary.
Undoubtedly SA, Russia, and other OPEC members will force lower prices as they see the swell of energy policy's on the horizon come more into focus in an attempted to show that its not worth investing billions into new energy when cheap energy is already available but this time it won't work and any politian who wishes to fight for the oil industry must be exposed and politically guillotined.
In my opinion the present solar energy technology has the same bottle neck situation as it was with direct current , and before the discovery of Alternate current. i.e. did not know how to transmit current to faraway locations.
With solar energy, the bottle neck is how to reduce solar cell size and still get high out put. I am sure someday, somebody will wake up and will find out previous night accident in his/her laboratory, and will see the solution behind it.
I read recently somewhere that the world produces just 1.5 million barrels per day more than is consumed. India and China will consume nearly 2 million barrels per day more this year alone. To meet the growing demand we need to find a lot of new and easily accessible oil and get it out of the ground immediately. However no major oil fields have been discovered for nearly 4 decades.
Actully, almost all the oil producing countries produced oil much less than their capacity to keep the price at certain level. Recently, out of fear of the present crisis, Saudi Arab increased its production. As Saudies do not want world to concentrate on alternative energy resources.
That increase in production did not help at all as oil prices still kept climbing up. So, the present problem is not entirely due to short of supply. "Market is saturated with supplies" said by one of oil producing country's president. The problem is the fear about future supplies and the way stock trader do speculation.
