How long will an oil field with reserves of 70 billion barrels of oil last at present world consumption?
156306
the current estimates are at 50 years
88647
We will never run out of oil, economics ensures that is the case. As oil becomes harder to get prices will increase, as the price increases people will use less oil. As a result there will always be oil in the ground, there will just be so few people using it that it won’t be worth pumping out.\n\nNobody with any knowledge of the subject has ever suggested that oil will ever run out. That is one point that all sides agree on. The only question is  how much more expensive it will get and how fast.
376748
Wonderful question really.  "When will the Earth's fossil fuels run out?"  I have heard different estimates including in a few a decades, to a century.  Doesn't really matter now though does it. JESUS will return someday soon.  That is in the Bible.  That message was warned us from JESUS HIMSELF. Yet, in the here and now, if one wants a stable society without pandering to terrorists, supplying them with the money to build the bombs they want to use to destroy us, we need to end our dependency on foreign oil.  The only solution then is alternative renewable energy.  Solar Power, Batteries, Hydrogen, Fuel Cell technology.  Solutions such as Ethanol and Fuel additives are partial solutions which require often flexible engines that can use such fuels.  And it requires that we get oil tycoons, who have a vested monetary interest in current oil reserves to invest in and promote these technologies with incentives and the promise of future profits on their investments.  Yet, repent and prepare for the return of JESUS CHRIST, because he may return any day now.  Even today, be ready, everyday for that eventuality.  \n\n-LOVE YOUR NIEGHBOR AS YOURSELF
529185
Ok, maybe I would be a better person to ask this question since I actually work in the industry finding the stuff. Seems to me some people have made up they're own minds without much knowledge of the industry.\n\nAs one guy has pointed out, yes as it takes millions of years to from and the amount we have used thus far is greater than that being made naturally. \n\nHowever, what people fail to realise is that its the larger discoveries which for the past decade has been in decine due to the price of oil. As such, oil companies were reluctant to spend money in exploration because of the decreased profit they would make. Since Bush decided to invade Iraq, the oil price shot up and now exploration is booming. More discoveries are being made, and production is up.\n\nAlso as you have mentioned there are places which have yet to be discovered. I recently was working for a company which did an exploration well which they had been planning for 20 years! Long time planning if you ask me, but the reason it took so long was because the techonolgy avaliable was not around at the time to explore it. We can only explore within the capabilities of current techonolgy. Not only that there are vast areas of the world that have yet to even be siesmically survey'ed, for example the Pacific Ocean, big huge expanse of water, how long do you think it would take to map the sub surface geology?\n\nAs for your third part of your question, there is such a thing as extended reach drilling, where (as the name suggests) they drill long sections and could quite easily tap potential reservoirs without damaging sensitive environments. Such drilling goes on in the UK.\n\nAll in all no the oil is not running out, these next few years are going to see and peak in the production of oil since hte industry started.\n\nP.S. Removing the oil from the ground doesnt in any way shape or form cause volcanoes as the guy above me suggested, that is mearly ill' education!
1157312
Oil is one of the end results of a long, long process of decomposition, heat, pressure, and transformation of molecular structures.  Many people are unaware that there are multiple types of oil resulting form differences in all of the components of the process.\n\nAs a "renewable resource," you are barking up the wrong geologic age.  Once the oil available on Earth is gone - that is, the "petroleum" created through metamorphic processes in deep layers of the planet - human beings may berely live long enough for them to see more.  it takes many millions of years to create oil through purely natural processes.  And the many physical changes in the planet that cause it to begin with, including vast earthquakes, total transformation of the layers of the Earth's crust, extinction of life forms, and other events, suggest that when is more oil made in the distant future, humans might themselves be part of the matter eventually converted into petroleum.\n\nWell, no, that's hardly likely.  Decomposition would prevent that.\n\nBut, anyhow - no, oil is not a practical form of a renweable resource.  It is possible to make synthetic versions of petroleum, or to make alternative fuels that have some of the key features of petroleum, however.\n\nUltimately, humanity may discover that petroleum is much too valuable to just burn.  It is a fundamental ingredient of many kinds of medicines.  It plays a role in various types of chemistry and other applications that may not ever be replaced or reproduced artificially.\n\nAnd humans will never live long enough to get more once it is gone.
174749
They are planning for a time when the oil runs out.
881664
Yes. Consider "oil supply" or "Oil reserves" if appropriate.\n\ncc
1100733
How old will you be fifteen years from now? That's how long it'll take to build up a substantial, nuclear infrastructure if all the global developers start today. China currently expands its conventional oil industry at a breakneck pace and PTR sells at an attractive price. An interest in advancing nuclear technology benefits the world's future, but old fashioned, bubbling crude remains king for our lifetime.  A small investment in WGII might reasonably satisfy a need to buy into science fancy, but focusing on oil puts the stock holder in the same position as the oil companies who get accused of making money hand over fist--why not you?
162172
ITS EVERY COUNTRIES RIGHT TO NUCLEAR ENERGY. What you think oil lasts forever? It is predicted that oil will run out in 15 years!
123709
That question can’t be answered until you tell us what we mean by ‘supply’. Oil supplies are measured in 3 basic ways.\n\nThe first type of supply is the liquid crude reserve supply. This is the amount of liquid oil that we absolutely, definitely know we can make a prophet out of at today’s prices and using today’s technology.  We have drilled well into reserve supplies, we know they are there, we know how much and we know the quality. Proven reserves are in the 1017-981 billion barrel range. (See link 1 below)\n\nThe second type is the  liquid crude  resource supply. This is the amount of liquid oil that we know exists in the ground that we can reasonably expect to be able to get to if we need it. We haven’t fully explored resource supplies. There might have been a few test holes drilled and various seismic tests but at the moment it’s not worth doing more detailed investigation because it isn’t profitable enough. Current estimates of world liquid oil resources range from 2, 248 to 3, 896 billion barrels. (See link 2 below).\n\nThen come the non-liquid oil resources. These are massive. They include tar sands and oil shales amongst other things. Although Canada has been profitably extracting sand oil for decades it is less profitable than drilling for liquid crude oil, so nobody has fully explored the extent of sand and shale oil. We know it’s huge, far larger than the amount of liquid crude ever discovered. But just how large is uncertain. Best estimates say that worldwide tar sands amount to 6,200 billion barrels with 890 billion\nbarrels being “recoverable”, while oil shale  in the US alone amounts to some 160,000 billion barrels (see link 3 below).\n\n______________\n>>>> guess-timates put our production peak around 25 years.\n\nNo, they don't. They put our liquid crude peak at around then, but the question asked about all oil, not just liquid crude. The leak for all oil won't come for another 100 years or so.
373683
Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global "Peak Oil."\n\n"Are We 'Running Out'? I Thought There Was 40 Years of the Stuff Left"\n\nOil will not just "run out" because all oil production follows a bell curve. This is true whether we're talking about an individual field, a country, or on the planet as a whole.  \n\nOil is increasingly plentiful on the upslope of the bell curve, increasingly scarce and expensive on the down slope. The peak of the curve coincides with the point at which the endowment of oil has been 50 percent depleted. Once the peak is passed, oil production begins to go down while cost begins to go up.\n\nIn practical and considerably oversimplified terms, this means that if 2000 was the year of global Peak Oil, worldwide oil production in the year 2020 will be the same as it was in 1980. However, the world’s population in 2020 will be both much larger (approximately twice) and much more industrialized (oil-dependent) than it was in 1980. Consequently, worldwide demand for oil will outpace worldwide production of oil by a significant margin. As a result, the price will skyrocket, oil-dependant economies will crumble, and resource wars will explode.\n\nThe issue is not one of "running out" so much as it is not having enough to keep our economy running. In this regard, the ramifications of Peak Oil for our civilization are similar to the ramifications of dehydration for the human body. The human body is 70 percent water. The body of a 200 pound man thus holds 140 pounds of water. Because water is so crucial to everything the human body does, the man doesn't need to lose all 140 pounds of water weight before collapsing due to dehydration. A loss of as little as 10-15 pounds of water may be enough to kill him.\n\nIn a similar sense, an oil-based economy such as ours doesn't need to deplete its entire reserve of oil before it begins to collapse. A shortfall between demand and supply as little as 10-15 percent is enough to wholly shatter an oil-dependent economy and reduce its citizenry to poverty.\n\nThe effects of even a small drop in production can be devastating. For instance, during the 1970s oil shocks, shortfalls in production as small as 5% caused the price of oil to nearly quadruple. The same thing happened in California a few years ago with natural gas: a production drop of less than 5% caused prices to skyrocket by 400%.\n\nFortunately, those price shocks were only temporary.\n\nThe coming oil shocks won't be so short-lived. They represent the onset of a new, permanent condition. Once the decline gets under way, production will drop (conservatively) by 3% per year, every year.
243823
It will depend when or if the Gulf-stream is switched off - it could be anywhere between 25 to 100 years depending on what happens and where you are!
310120
There have been discoveries of oil near ANWR 1002 area in Alaska.  A study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1998 shows in the results that "The total quantity of technically recoverable oil within the entire assessment area is estimated to be between 5.7 and 16.0 Billion barrels, with a mean value of 10.4 billion barrels.  Technically recoverable oil within the4 AWNR 1002 area is estimated to be between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels, with a mean value of 7.7 billion barrels." (pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/fs-0028-01.pdf)  Read this study to better inform yourself about oil in alaska.  I am not sure how long this amount would last, but I am going to investigate how much oil is produced in foreign markets and do an unscientific comparrison.  I'll let you know when I finally get it "figured" out.
336535
Total life span=8billon+yrs.\nIt may last for another 4.5 billion years.....(and counting)
429864
About a million years:\n\nSun puts out about 3.8*10^26 W\nWe use about 1.2*10^13 W\njust divide and convert from second into years.\n\n(this matches pretty good using the estimated 2005 eneregry consumption of about 4.6*10^27erg as well)
1172267
Right at this time, the Middle Eastern Nations provide and control the majority of today's oil. Unfortunately, the next 20 years will probably be provided by the same source (for the western world that is unless alternative means are initiated). Other parts of the world do have ample resources to assist in providing oil for the rest of the world. Countries such as Venezuela, Mexico, Russia and even Canada and be self sustaining in this area and the United States is currently purchasing oil from these areas. Canada has a vast reserve underground in what is called "Oil Sands" where the oil is actually trapped in sand which makes it a grainy like tar. It is very costly (at this time) to extract the oil from the sand.
1108557
I will think so.  Yes, $70 per barrel seems to be too high.  However, with the increasing demand from developing countries like China and India, oil will probably reach $90 by this year end and over $100 next year or so.