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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 41 (1957)

Issue: 2. (February)

First Page: 357

Last Page: 358

Title: Geologist's Long-Term Forecast of Petroleum Supply and Demand: ABSTRACT

Author(s): Wallace E. Pratt

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

The petroleums--oil and natural gas--have been called upon during the past 20 years to assume a constantly increasing share of the burden of supplying the energy demand of this country. Over the same period this total demand has doubled. At present the petroleums furnish two-thirds of all the energy consumed in the United States. Twenty years hence, in 1975, the petroleum industry expects demand for these fuels still to amount to two-thirds of our total energy requirements. These figures mean that demand for energy in the form of oil and natural gas has trebled over the last two decades and will double again over the next two. In the rest of the Free World the situation is similar, but even more aggravated.

Throughout the history of the petroleum industry, a period now almost a century long, this country and its government have manifested recurrent anxiety as to the adequacy of our petroleum resource. This anxiety prevails widely again to-day in the face of an imminent future demand of unprecedented proportions. Some of the most esteemed, best informed students of the petroleum industry have recently concluded, independently of each other, that the all-time peak of petroleum production in the United States will have been attained within the next 10 years. In the face of these predictions how can the industry hope to meet a multiplying demand over the next 20 years?

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This paper attempts to present evidence that justifies the confidence of the industry that it will be able to meet the anticipated demand. Certain current trends are emphasized as significant: (1) the historic record of exploration and discovery in the industry which has consistently mounted in proportion to increased demand; (2) the historic record that expert opinion has persistently underestimated the volume of the undiscovered petroleum resource; (3) the prospects for future recovery of oil excluded from present estimates of proved and potential reserves as commercially unrecoverable.

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Copyright 1997 American Association of Petroleum Geologists