No oil peak for 25 years

There is one person who knows the situation of the world's oil reserves better than anyone. Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research Associates rejects the "common knowledge" that "we are running out of oil right now."

The world's oil production can continue to grow at least until it increases by 50% in 20 years. Bloomberg:

The world probably has 3.7 trillion barrels of oil left, more than twice the estimates of geologists and analysts such as Matthew Simmons, of the investment bank Simmons & Co., who argue global output is close to a peak, said Peter Jackson, director of oil-industry research for the Cambridge, Massachusetts, firm.

``The peak-oil theory causes confusion and can lead to inappropriate actions and turn attention away from the real issues,'' Jackson said in remarks prepared for a conference call today with analysts, investors and reporters. ``Oil is too critical to the global economy to allow fear to replace careful analysis about the very real challenges.''

And...

When global crude output begins to fall around 2050, the decline probably will be gradual, giving policy makers, industry and energy producers time to develop new alternatives to petroleum-based fuels, the report said.

...

`Bursts of Growth'

CERA's Jackson said today that ``bursts of growth are about to happen'' in oil production in Angola, Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico and the Saudi kingdom.

Questions about the ``reliability'' of some Middle East reserve estimates don't negate the huge oil deposits those countries still have yet to tap, said Jackson, former chief geologist for Enterprise Oil Plc, which was acquired by Shell in 2002.

And this will give us time to develop alternate energy sources. After all, the earth of bombarded by energy from the Sun every day.

Untapped Reserves

Refiners have used about 1.08 trillion barrels of crude since the birth of the petroleum industry in Pennsylvania in 1859, according to Cambridge Energy.

Undiscovered fields probably hold 758 billion barrels, followed by 704 billion trapped inside a very hard type of rock known as shale, and 662 billion in the Middle East, according to the report. The rest of the firm's 3.7 trillion barrel total comes from untapped reserves in the deepest seas, the Arctic and places such as Canada's tar sands and Venezuela's Orinoco basin.