Oil Supply: Peak Oil and the Role of Enhanced Oil Recovery

"Peak Oil" is a reality that will continue to play a critical role in the lives of billions of people who live in the 195 countries of the world who depend on oil. Matthew Simmons, one of the leading and most knowledgeable advocates of Peak Oil before his untimely death in 2010, wrote a highly acclaimed book, Twilight in the Desert that discussed the oil industry in depth and also provided substantial proof of dangerously shrinking oil reserves in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Simmons' bottom line was simply, Peak Oil is real and we must take definitive action.
Most of the economies of the world have been built on the availability of "cheap oil", but unfortunately cheap oil no longer exists. In the late 1990's, oil sold for around $10 a barrel, but today oil is selling for around $100 a barrel and is expected to trend much higher in the years ahead.
The world currently consumes approximately 85 million barrels of oil per day or over 31 billion barrels of oil per year – or as author Peter Tertzakian states in his wonderful book on the oil industry, "One Thousand Barrels of Oil Per Second". The world actually uses about 1,000 barrels of oil per second—a staggering reality. The figures for the United States are about 22.5 million barrels of oil per day, or 7.5 billion barrels of oil per year. By the year 2025, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that the world demand for oil will grow by 50% – from 31 billion barrels of oil per year to over 47 billion barrels.. The big question is whether this is even possible? However, if this increase is possible where will this additional oil (energy) come from? The answers to those two questions are not exactly clear today—but they may be matters of life and death for millions of people—a sobering thought.
When Peak Oil arrives it doesn't mean that there is no more oil available. It simply means that there will be less oil available, demand cannot continue to be continuously satisfied, and only the most prosperous and wealthiest countries of the world will be able to afford the high cost of oil. However, someday (perhaps as early as the end of the 21st Century) there will be no more oil to be recovered because we all agree the supply of global oil is finite.

Oil Edge

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