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In the National Geographic

"Maugeri is the author of The Age of Oil: The Mythology, History, and Future of the World's Most Controversial Resource. As a senior vice president at the Italian oil corporation Eni SpA, he's also an oil-industry insider."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... gas_2.html

Seems to me that he hasn't looked at the graph showing discovery peaked in the 60s. He claims that not much of the world has been prospected for oil - surely not true?

Im not sure - I was under the impression that the world WAS well explored.

But then, when looking at the drilling figures -- there was 25000 oil wells drilled in North America in 2006.

In the middle east there was a paltry 1,800 (and this includes Gas)

Indeed the oil drilling in north america represented half of all oil and gas wells drilled on the entire planet in 2006.

So it the rest of the world really searching hard enough ?

(**TBaffled puts helmet on and prepares for onslaught..... **)

Whether or not enough drilling has been carried out in Saudi Arabia etc (and in Twilight in the Desert the conclusion was certainly that all the rich and easy pickings had been found decades ago), you really do have to question this guy's credibility when he comes out with such sweeping statements as:

Can we ease our "oil addiction" before supplies run short?
The Stone Age didn't finish because of a lack of stone. The Oil Age won't finish because of a lack of oil. Sooner or later, probably in this century, oil will be surpassed by another source of energy.

Sounds like he's just copying and pasting the same tired old soundbites, he's not really thinking, and no, he has certainly never seen the peak discovery graph!