Peak Oil: Myth or Impending Doom?

Abstract

The debate over the prospect of a peak in oil production occurring in the near future radically divides oil experts. Some are convinced that the comparison of the total estimated recoverable resources with the quantities of oil already discovered and produced points to the inevitability of a slowdown in production growth, to be followed by a stabilization in the near future and a decrease over the following decades. Conversely other experts, often economists, consider the ‘peak oil’ prophecy to be a fallacy consistently undermined by empirical evidence, in particular by the slow but continuous increase in global proved oil reserves. Indeed, according to BP, these reserves amounted to 1380 Gbl in 2010 as against 670 in 1980.