When is it forecast that we will run out of Oil.?

Question

When is it forecast that we will run out of Oil.?

Answer 1

supposedly 2050 but i think its been forecasted to be before then recently

Answer 2

There is no clear answer to that question. It is hard to put a date on this because their are fields(oil) that have not even been tapped yet,both on land and in the oceans.

My husband works in the oil industry and I know there are rigs that are currently drilling and in production that produce over one million barrels per day. We do not use the oil that we produce for ourselves. We sell that oil. I believe it is to Canada and China but do not hold me to that.

What is the real punch in the stomach is that diesel fuel is a scrap fuel and cost basically nothing to produce yet is the most expensive fuel on the market. Diesel prices are as high as they are because our country TRUCKS supplies from one side of the country. These vehicles,even the small ones,use diesel. The price of gas is outrageous but the price of diesel is what is causing the rise in price on the shelves.

Answer 3

Somewhere around 2040-2050, but not exactly. Before oil actually runs out production will slowly fall year after year until it is a small fraction of what we use today. Its not like all the oil fields in the world will be pumping oil one day and they run out simultaneously the next morning.

We might have 40 years of oil left but ask yourself how expensive will it be in year 39.

BTW, oil will run out in some places faster than others. Mexico will be dry in 10 years, the US in 15 years while some middle eastern countries could still be pumping oil in a century.

Answer 4

We will never (completely) run out of oil. So far we have used much  of the easily found and extracted big petroleum deposits. When I say easy I mean cheap - the money spent finding and producing these deposits is less than the price oil gets from the consumer. This difference equals the oil industries profit.

Think of oil deposits as animals of different sizes - there are only 1000's of big animals (ie elephants), millions of smaller critters (ie mice) and billions of tiny ones (ie bugs). Now lets say you are a hunter that has to feed a very large family - what are you going to hunt first. Elephants stick out because of their size - killing one will provide the family lots of food. The family will grow and get in the habit of hunting elephants - until they are all gone.

Thats where the earth is with oil - we have found almost all the big giant oil deposits and used more than half of this "big elephant oil". We are past the peak of easy oil. Now we are hunting smaller better hidden oil deposits that cost more to find and produce and don't last as long. Once they are gone we will hunt even smaller ones. At some point the energy we spend  hunting (the cost) will be larger than the reward we get. The really tiny deposits will never be used or if they are at really high cost.

We need to switch from oil to other sources (solar, wind etc) - the elephants are all gone and our family is getting bigger and more hungery.  Hope this makes sense.

ps the previous post was incorrect. The USA exports very very little oil - it is a net importer using 40% of the worlds oil production. Canada exports 80% of it's oil production to the US. Domestic US production only meets only 35% of it's oil needs.