Petroleum – Oil and Natural Gas

Are We Running Out of Oil and Gas?

No one can know for certain how much oil and gas remains to be discovered. But geologists sometimes make educated guesses.

The total amount of oil or gas in the reservoir is called original oil, or gas. For a specific reservoir, engineers estimate this amount using information about the size of the reservoir trap and properties of the rock. Some of the original oil and gas deposited millions of years ago has been discovered, while some remains undiscovered—the target of future exploration.

Discovered (or known) resources can be divided into proved reserves and prospective or unproved (probable and possible) resources.

• Proved reserves are the quantities of oil or gas from known reservoirs that are expected to be recoverable with current technology and at current economic conditions.
• Prospective resources are those that may be recoverable in the future with advanced technologies or under different economic conditions.
  The Oil & Gas Journal (OGJ) estimates that at the beginning of 2009, worldwide reserves were 1.34 trillion barrels of oil and 6,254 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas. The oil estimate is 16 billion barrels of oil higher than in 2007, reflecting additional discoveries, improving technology and changing economics.

Continental North America and much of continental Europe have already been explored heavily, and any new discoveries are likely to be small. But many areas of the globe are largely unexplored, and large new deposits are waiting to be found. Global hot spots that may house significant new oil and gas reservoirs include:

• Offshore Brazil
• The Gulf of Mexico
• Alaska
• Offshore western Africa
• Russia
• Areas across Asia and the Pacific.

These are just a few of the current areas of growth. Most observers agree that significant deposits of oil and gas remain undiscovered in the Middle East.

The largest reserves of natural gas are found in Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Algeria, Nigeria, Venezuela and Iraq.

At current consumption levels, the remaining reserves represent 44.6 years of oil and 66.2 years of natural gas. Does this mean that the world will be out of fossil fuels in 50 years or so? That theory has been around since the 1970s. In fact, the figures for years of remaining reserves have remained relatively constant during the past few decades as the industry has balanced consumption with newly discovered oil and gas deposits.