[Adelaidewonderer]

I know this has probably been gone over many times before, but is there any definitve answer as to how much oil is actually left in the Middle East / World.

Looking at the middle east reserves in 1985 (before those miracle doubling/ tripling efforts) and going by production over the last 25 years, it should appear that very soon (and i mean in next 5 years), my car will become quite useless to me.

Yet because each opec country has a Bernie Madoff wannabee in their energy departments, everyone seems to be fooled into thinking that, buying a petrol powered car, will provide at least 10 years of service. Who do I believe??

[Revi]

Assuming that there is a trillion barrels left in the world and there are roughly a billion gas powered vehicles left on the planet, there's about 1000 barrels per vehicle. Only about a third of that is used for transportation, so that means about 333 barrels per vehicle. That works out to 13,986 gallons per vehicle or about 280,000 miles per vehicle at 20 mpg. That means that if we could get every drop out and use it all on the existing vehicles on the planet and drive 10,000 miles a year we have about 28 years of motoring left.

Now what I'm leaving out is the fact that soon we'll have 2 billion vehicles on the planet and the fact that the amount of oil will start to dwindle and will get used for the military and busses, if we're lucky.

[Pops]

I don't know how much there is.

I do know that the average price of oil is rising and the floor price seems to be rising as well. I can only assume that we're paying more for oil because we can't just drill a hole, stick in a pipe and fill up the car any more – leads me to think we have less cheap oil available that we used to.

Luckily we have alternative energy! One substitute for light, sweet, shallow, dry-land crude is strip mining gravel, steaming off the half baked kerogen and cooking it into syncrude. Voila! Another is taking the food we used to feed our food with and cooking it into fuel – the possibilities are endless I tell ya!

I hope there is lots of oil in Iraq and the pre-salt oil is gettable and there is a whole bunch available when the poles melt 'cuz I need it for the sump pump and air conditioner!

[SeaGypsy]

If it was your pony and you could pull your bet, now is as good a time as any cause she aint gonna finish the race. Are you aware of Export Land Model AD? There is not an exporter in the world who is not rapidly an the way to needing to beome an importer. All hell is going to break loose and your 5 year timeframe is probably as good a guess as any. (and don't mind Pops, the cantankerous git has his tongue firmly planted in his cheek )

[Xenophobe]

I know this has probably been gone over many times before, but is there any definitve answer as to how much oil is actually left in the Middle East / World.

The total global geologic endowment runs into the 10 trillion + figure, even if we aren't counting the oil shales of the US, which is a reasonable exclusion in my mind.

We've used a trillion.

http://www.spe.org/spe-app/spe/jpt/2006 ... illion.htm

[SeaGypsy]

That is hilarious!

7 trillion including 3.5 trillion yet to be discovered, a trillion burnt, another 1.5 trillion unrecoverable!
This guy is employed by Haliburton and the article isn't even well constructed disinformation.

These guys stated aim is to pull every drop from every crevas on and under the planet, they don't give a rats about consequences and their mission in life is sponsored by big oil to promote bigger oil.

[Lore]

Meaningless, as to the measure of what is left. The question should be about what we can get at and use inexpensively. Actually, living here in the US I’m rich with gold, my problem is that it’s all locked up in federal vaults.