8
Oil Supply
Crude oil is the product of the burial and transformation of biomass over the last 200 million years and, historically, has faced no
equal as an energy source for its intrinsic qualities of extractability,
transportability, versatility, and cost. But, the total amount of oil
underground is finite, and, therefore, production will one day reach
a peak and then begin to decline. Such a peak may be involuntary
if supply is unable to keep up with growing demand. Alternatively,
a production peak could be brought about by voluntary reductions in oil consumption before physical limits to continued supply growth kick in. Not surprisingly, concerns have arisen in recent
years about the relationship between the growing consumption of
oil and the availability of oil reserves and the impact of potentially
dwindling supplies and rising prices on the world's economy and
social welfare. Following a peak in world oil production, the rate of
production would eventually decrease and, necessarily, so would
the rate of consumption of oil.
Oil can be found and produced from a variety of sources. To
date, world oil production has come almost exclusively from what
are considered to be conventional sources of oil. While there is no
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An Introduction to Petroleum Technology, Economics, and Politics
by James G. Speight
Copyright © 2011 Scrivener Publishing LLC.