Matt Simmons on the World's Oil Problem - 1/23/08

Below is a quote from Matt Simmons. Mr. Simmons is a leader in the energy industry, and is an expert on oil and gas. This is from a recent interview about the world’s oil problems, discussing whether or not the world can increase oil output in the next 10 years to meet demand:

“If we were lucky enough to open up the entire outer continental shelf, and then we were lucky enough to invent quickly enough seismic equipment to start doing some sort of a high-grading of where we should drill, and then we were lucky enough to have a growing fleet of newer offshore rigs that could drill wells, and we just discovered two new North Seas, then there’s grounds that we could basically spend $400 or $500 billion and maybe end up 10 years from now with 6 million barrels per day of fresh supply. But the problem is that each one of those things that I said, ‘If we were lucky enough,’ we don’t have. And 10-15 years from now, our 73 million barrels per day of current crude production could easily be down to 50 or 45. So you say even if you had another 6 million barrels per day, you can’t climb back out of the hole.”

None of the U.S. presidential candidates are saying anything like this in any of their speeches even though a number of them are aware of the problem.   

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