bhutocracy

And to the best of their available knowledge they probably weren't too far off. It's only technology that has allowed us to delay that. You can't look at past predictions that were incorrect and conclude that new predictions won't come to pass and it's not something to worry about, we've just gained reprieves here or there. Essentially new predictions are probably pretty close based on existing technology but you have to allow an x factor for further advances in recovery.

However first off there are two issues with BP's predictions, one, their 53 year timeline looks to be based on present consumption which is stupid as bar a recession here or there the long term trend for oil consumption is only growth which means there is actually significantly less than 53 years left. However they are also using a very loose definition of "proven" oil, which although not as strict as a company would use to report their own reserves (because they have to rely on nationalised companies reporting their own figures) is still very strict in terms of actually measuring the likely amount of oil. Proven oil is generally oil you have a 90% certainty of existing which is quite high. Once you add in Probable (50% chance of existing) the world reserves would blow out a lot further than their stated 53 years. Then of course you have Prospective or Possible with a 10% chance of existing which would blow it out further still. So there is probabilistically more oil than they're stating and it will likely be used faster than they're stating. I don't think we have to worry about oil "running out" in the next hundred years, the problem is that there won't be enough to meet demand which is the more immediate issue. There will probably still be oil in 300 years it'll just be $300 per drop and of course won't be used as more economic alternatives will be around.

That said it's vaguely annoying to see idiots here think they've got it all figured out and it's all a scam to keep oil prices high. "Can't fool me hah!". Yeah, it's all a big scam and oil campanies are refining tar sands, drilling insane depths in the ocean, testing shale formations to see if they can be fracked economically and are even trying to move onto methane hydrates. Yeah they waste billions on unnecessarily expensive exploration and production just to fool you! Idiots.

Oil is running out and it's becoming more and more expensive to extract, we can never have cheap oil again as we've already drilled all the cheap places. It's deeper and deeper in the ocean and less and less economic shales which means the baseline production costs will keep rising. Anytime the price of oil dips it just makes the least economic wells turn off the tap which reduces production and brings the price back up. We will never have $30 oil again because the new extraction methods cost more than $30 to even get it out of the ground. It might sink to that in a recession temporarily as consumption falls and capitulation sets in but it can never be kept that low on a sustained timeline because most of the wells in the world would have to be shut in to not make a massive loss and therefore it would become scarce again, which would further knock the wind out of economy which would make it fall again and so on until we properly transitioned away from it which would take decades if we hadn't properly started by that time.

Don't get too comfortable in the US either, world prices will dictate exports. Some of you think America owns the oil in America lol. No company extracting the oil is beholden to sell it for less than they can. That's why LNG trains are currently being built to connect the domestic gas market to the world markets to get higher prices. Come around 2019+ your low heating bills will be a thing of the past. Similarly with oil it's going to be sold to the highest international bidder. The only thing that will prevent that is more regulations, ie granting leases with the proviso that x% is sold for domestic consumption and that sort of thing.