Looked at the link UndercoverElephant posted to the Indy and also found this article by the Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry. (Apologies if this is posted elsewhere.)
Oil shortage a myth
Explaining why the published estimates of proven global reserves are less than half the true amount, Dr Pike said there was anecdotal evidence that big oil producers were glad to go along with under-reporting of proven reserves to help maintain oil's high price.
His paper from Petroleum Review that all this is based on is
here
In a typically wobbly moment my first thought was "have we got this wrong then?". However, I think he has made the slightly significant mistake of forgetting that the stated present day proven reserves (OPEC shennanigans aside for now) are
not the P90 for "virgin" fields but are in fact largely for fields that have already produced large volumes of oil. i.e. current proven reserves include those which have been upgraded from probable. The target has moved but he is looking at the numbers as if we haven't pumped any oil. Am I right on this?
I'm not at all going to suggest that this is in anyway a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters. Definitely not suggesting such a thing.
Isn't it helpful having people making dubious yet authoritative sounding arguments?
