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by J. C. Mirre Bsc (Author)
Peak Oil theory is wrong, period. The book starts analyzing the repeated false prophesies bawled by both relevant personalities and inexperienced doomsayers that through the years were echoed by serious and prestigious news media, sometimes even quoted by influential heads of state. Oil production and reserves data proves that they were wrong in every instance. Year after year their calculations proved to be erroneous, but yet they still declare that the gloomy days are close. Today with a slight change in the stage design of the drama: now it is not a question of oilfields becoming exhausted, but rather that gas will soon be so expensive that only the most opulent will be able to fill their tanks. Oilfields historical production curves do not follow the "bell shaped" curve as defined by M. King Hubbert. After the steep surge of yield resulting from a discovery and later maximum withdrawal, the fall in production is not symmetrical to the rise and tends to be much flatter. Actually in most of the cases there is no defined "peak" but rather a maximum yield "plateau". The smooth diminishing rate of flow is simply results from the use of enhanced recovery techniques (EOR) employed to stimulate the surfing of oil rising from the reservoir rock in depth. The doomsters also ignore the potential of future oil discoveries in unknown or poorly explored sedimentary basins all over the world. Evaluations done by international or national organizations such as the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) are throwing new light over undiscovered thick and extensive sedimentary basins potentially endowed with substantial oil and gas resources. Drilling for oil is the basic and ultimate tool to define an oil deposit. Only a well can tell whether we are dealing with a future oilfield or a barren area. Yet, one must consider that in the last 100 years 50% of the wells drilled in the world were sunk on the US territory, that is, over a surface that makes only 6.6% of the total continental lands in the planet. This fact alone is solid evidence that the rest of the world is poorly explored. WORLD WIDE OIL EXPLORATION IS IN ITS INFANCY and many extensive sedimentary basins with potential oil resources are still unknown and awaiting for both adventurous entrepreneurs and highly experienced multinationals to bring billions of barrels up to the light. This fact together with the present reserves estimations allows us to sustain that there is oil enough to take us till the end of the century, easily surpassing the "oil depletion" prophecy that doomsayers wrongly predicted for 2005 or successive years. THIS WITHOUT CONSIDERING AT ALL THE AWESOME NEW OIL RESERVES THAT CAN BE ADDED BY THE USE OF THE NEW REVOLUTIONARY TECHNIQUES THAT ALLOW FUTURE OIL TAPPING FROM OIL SHALES AND GAS SHALES. .
Author Biography
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Juan Carlos Mirre is a geologist graduated from the Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina) with a MSc degree and a Masters in Economic Geology from the Sorbonne University (Paris, France). During his professional life he was in charge of numerous projects as an exploration geologist in many countries in South America, Europe and Western Asia. He was also involved in a number of studies concerning the environmental impact assessment of development and operation projects. He is also an author of both scientific and science divulgation papers and books, mostly written in Spanish. The author is also a Private tutor for Masters and graduate degrees in Economic & Applied Geology.
