Dear EarthTalk: Is the
world running out of oil?
- -- Allie Knopf, Kansas
City, MO
Many experts say that evidence
points to a declining world oil
supply. According to renowned
petroleum geologist Colin Campbell,
who has worked for Texaco, BP, Shell
and other major oil companies, world
oil discovery peaked in the 1960s,
while world production is set to
peak about six years from now.
Campbell predicts “the onset of a
chronic long-term shortage” by 2010.
According to the Energy Information
Administration (EIA), part of the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the
U.S. has 22.7 billion barrels of
“proven” oil reserves as of January
2004, about 20 percent less than we
had in 1990. “Proven” refers to
estimated amounts that can be
recovered in upcoming years with
reasonable certainty. Outside the
U.S., nearly two-thirds of the
world’s proven oil reserves exist in
the 11 countries that make up the
Organization of the Petroleum Export
Countries (OPEC): Algeria,
Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait,
Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
the United Arab Emirates and
Venezuela.
The U.S. Geological Survey, which
last conducted its World Petroleum
Assessment in 2000, estimated that
649 billion barrels of undiscovered
oil, and 612 billion barrels of “oil
reserve growth,” exist outside the
U.S. “Undiscovered” refers to oil
located in places that haven't yet
been drilled or explored; “oil
reserve growth” refers to new
discoveries near or in existing oil
fields.
These estimates do not include oil
sitting in storage facilities, such
as the one billion barrel capacity
U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve,
located underground in salt caverns
along the Gulf of Mexico coast. It
is the world’s largest cache of
emergency oil, with a provision of
53 days of import protection.
How much oil do we need anyway?
According to the International
Energy Outlook, released this year
by the EIA, world demand is expected
to increase by 1.9 percent annually,
from 77 million barrels per day in
2001 to 121 million barrels per day
in 2025, with much of the increase
projected to occur in the U.S.,
China and other developing nations
in Asia. Over 19 million barrels of
oil were consumed per day in the
U.S. alone in 2003.
Dr. Nancy Kete, director of the
World Resources Institute’s Climate,
Energy and Pollution Program, says:
“We must face the inescapable fact
that the nation’s environment,
economy, national security and oil
resource base all point to the need
for vast investments in energy
efficiency and the rapid
introduction of new, non-oil energy
sources.”
CONTACT: United States
Department of Energy’s Energy
Information Administration, (202)
586-8800,
http://eia.doe.gov/; U.S.
Geological Survey, (303) 236-5776,
http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/wep/;
World Resources Institute, (202)
729-7600,
www.wri.org.
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