The art of appraising oil and gas resources has been maturing rapidly during the past few years. This welcome development has come about because of a growing awareness that petroleum resource estimates are required for the development of reasonable energy policies and long-range plans.

Published appraisals of oil and gas resources in the United States date back at least 70 years. Since that time many estimates have been made available to the public. In the 20-year period following 1955 the amounts resulting from these appraisals varied widely,

End_Page 540------------------------------

giving rise to much confusion and controversy. Attempts to compare these forecasts reveal that many of them were poorly documented and utilized different assumptions, definitions, methods, geographic boundaries, and data bases. During recent years increased effort has been directed toward resolving some of these major problems, and there is evidence that progress has been made.

Events triggered by the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 focused attention on the world's energy problems and on the inherent uncertainty of resource estimates. It is evident that many nations need forecasts of future petroleum supplies and that these should be based on reliable estimates of the distribution and magnitude of oil and gas resources throughout the world. This situation calls for a high level of domestic and international cooperation among resource appraisers. Communication lines need to be improved; how to accomplish this quickly and effectively is one of the major problems facing us today.

End_of_Article - Last_Page 541------------