All sorts of people have been weighing in on the price-of-oil situation lately. Could the current price be a bubble waiting to burst or is it reflective of flat production levels mixed with the rising demand from India and China? If former Saudi Aramco executive, Sadad Al-Husseini, is right, $130 oil might be a bargain-basement price in the near future. It's his contention that the "proven" reserves that are claimed to exist by oil-producing countries are substantially inflated with "probable" reserves being added to the former figure, as well as tar and oil sands. How many non-existent barrels might there be? Try 300 billion.

Mr. Husseini makes the claim in an article in Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, disagreeing with that publication's numbers and "common methods" of reserve estimation. He says the estimates include "unconventional hydrocarbons, inaccessible oil accumulations and unconfirmed recoveries, none of which fit the current definitions of proven or probable reserves." An example he sites, according to our source article from NewsMax, is the 140 billion barrels of Canadian bitumen estimate that is often reported as "proven" reserves. He believes only a small fraction of that amount could be turned into a useful fuel.

Perhaps the oil-supply future will become more clear with the completion of a study this November by the International Energy Agency. They are considered a reliable source of oil information and are currently analyzing depletion rates and are talking with usually-secretive governments. We suspect that many "experts" will continue to weigh in on the topic long before the study's release.

[Source: NewsMax]

While the amount of energy the world demands every year is tremendous, the cost of finding and purchasing that energy is just as staggering. According to this article, ExxonMobil plans to spend between $25 and $35 billion every year for the foreseeable future in search of more oil. Even as established oil reserves dry up, the company is finding more oil through their new operations than they have been losing from closing their old ones. With $40.6 billion dollars in profits last year, the company surely has plenty of cash on hand to go out and search for even more crude.

Although Exxon Mobil is spending a pile to discover new oil sources, the amount pales in comparison to the $1 trillion in total money that the world will spend on new energy projects in the coming years. We wish that more of that money were being spent on alternatives to oil, but, as this article points out, we will undoubtedly consume all of the oil that anyone can find.

[Source: CNN Money]