When will the world's supply of oil run out?

While the supply of oil is likely to go into a decline within a decade (some scientists think it already has) there will be many things that will help to extend the supply, so it is unlikely to completely run out for many decades. Some well informed predictions suggest that by 2050 the world will be essentially running on empty, but many things could change over the next 40 years.


http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php





It is true that most of the major oil companies have been failing to discover as much new oil each year as they are producing, leaving us currently with falling oil reserves, but the real problem at present is that consumption is growing and has reached a record 83 million barrels of oil per day worldwide. Oil demand is one of the reasons that it is so hard to predict how long our oil supplies will last. When oil reached record high prices in the early 1980's the demand for oil dropped off dramatically. So far, there has been little reduction in demand as a result of the currently high prices in the market. If oil demand drops significantly world oil reserves could last much much longer.





Several factors will change the supply of oil as prices increase. Right now many smaller companies are drilling for small oil reserves profitably and successfully. The major oil companies are still ignoring these small reserves as they have difficulty making a return on investment, while the small companies can easily find, produce and profit from 1 million barrel reservoirs. These types of oil reservoirs exist all over the world within the areas where major oil discoveries have been made, but have generally been ignored because these small reservoirs will only produce for a few years and often take more work to find relative to the size of the discovery than the large fields. However, many existing oil fields that have been considered depleted are proving to still have a second life in them in the form of these small reserves left behind and missed the first time. These types of reserves are likely to become a major factor in slowing the decline in future years and the oil exploration business may become dominated by small companies that are more agile and creative than the large majors.





The other thing to consider is that recovery of oil from a typical oil reservoir is often only about 50% of the oil. If you think about this, it means that it is likely that for the trillion barrels of oil that the world has recovered and consumed, another trillion barrels was left behind. If, and this is a big if that is very much unknown, a new technology is invented that will make it possible to recover this previously 'unrecoverable' oil, the world's oil supply might be extended for many more years. Some techniques already exist to do secondary recovery and these are likely to utilized much more as oil prices rise.





As oil prices rise there is much more incentive to use alternative fuels and energy sources like ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, hydrogen, nuclear, coal, tar sands, oil shale, solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, tidal power, biomass, methane hydrates, etc. Each of these types of energy may start taking up some of the current market for oil and as they begin making larger and larger contributions to the energy mix, there will be less demand for oil, stretching out the decline curve even further.





If you want to keep up with changes and events related to energy production and peak oil I suggest the following web page:


http://www.energybulletin.net/news.php?c鈥?/a>





The one thing you can be sure of, if the current demand for oil does not decline, the price of oil in the future is very unlikely to be cheaper because it is very unlikely that we can drill our way out of this supply problem.When will the world's supply of oil run out?
20 years.When will the world's supply of oil run out?
at double the current rate of consumption, it will take more than 2 weeks before we run low enough to even concern ourselves with it.
in approximently 30 to 40 years


IF WE STAY OUT OF ALASKA


which I think we should
At our current rate of usage, if no new sources are found or our use becomes less due to exploring other fuel sources, we have roughly 20-30 years left.
There is one untapped field in Wyoming (among many) that is estimated to contain enough oil to last the entire world, at present rates of petroleum consumption, for 400 years. This isn't oil shale or something exotic, either... just drill conventional wells and watch the black gold gush forth. It's a high-desert area, no agriculture, almost zero cattle ranching, mostly Bureau of Land Management supervised (not National Wildlife Preserves, etc.) for which drilling permits can be issued relatively easily... just waiting to be drilled.





Why hasn't this field been tapped? Good question... Answers usually involve those disruptive environmental groups, or, even worse, Oil Company conspiratorial workings.





I live near this potential oilfield. I know just enough about geology to believe it and its potential actually do exist.





Go figure.
Experts predict it will happen this Saturday at 3:31 pm...