Are the International Oil Companies Running Out of Oil?

by Mike Bahorich
Director, Exploration and Production Technology
Executive Vice President
Apache Corp.

World Energy, v10n4 Read more articles from this issue

Is the world running out of oil?

Not for a long, long time.

Are the international oil companies running out of oil?

Now there’s something to keep us awake at night.

It is no longer news that world energy consumption is increasing at a phenomenal rate: The Energy Information Administration’s International Energy Outlook 2007 projects a 57 percent increase between 2004 and 2030. Most of us understand that the bulk of the growth is in the less-developed world, with China and India named most often. Even with all the talk about new forms of energy, we in the industry know that liquids – mostly oil – will continue to provide the largest share of the world’s energy for decades to come.

Of course, this begs the question: Is the world running out of oil? The answer is: No, not for a long, long time. So far, we have produced only about 1 trillion of the world’s approximately 5 trillion barrels of recoverable oil, both conventional and nonconventional.

But getting at the other 8 to 10 trillion barrels of oil locked within planet Earth is going to be very, very difficult, if not impossible. Even for the 4 trillion barrels of remaining recoverable oil, we face production barriers, environmental concerns, infrastructure constraints and geopolitical complications that are truly mind-boggling.

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