Name that crude oil price per barrel!

Keep in mind you can also go look for yourself at the locations being talked about. The USGS website is chock full of information that weeds out the whole oil company CEO mistrust issue.

When was is exactly that Shell Oil CEO stated that in 2008?

Was it before or after the USGS report about Bakken being assessed to hold 3-4 billion barrels of oil or was it after that report?

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

Is the Shell CEO trying to tell us we're running out because they want to drive the price up? Maybe it's because they don't have access to get at the new discoveries?

From what I've seen and read, almost every year there is talk about new discoveries. If we're running out or reaching peak, why are they still exploring and finding new sources?

The Bakken fields, while impressive, would be completely exhausted with about 1 months of world oil demand if it were the sole provider, or 105 days if the U.S. used all the oil. To get at that oil, they have to use a fracking technology that is being heavily scrutinized as a potential ecological nightmare. Who knows if the EPA will ban it. It wouldnt be the first time the government has stood in the way of available energy by means of regulation (see Coal). There are many other sites across the world, through new technology, are expanding their collectable reserves by large amounts. There are impressive sites especially in South America.

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From what I've seen and read, almost every year there is talk about new discoveries. If we're running out or reaching peak, why are they still exploring and finding new sources?

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The main issue that most people dont realize is that the giant oil fields that account for the bulk of the world's oil supply are in decline (they produce less oil every year), and there are less giants being found to replinish their supply. So, yes, we are finding a lot of new fields in new, deeper, harder to get to areas. Will they be enough to offset the declines? Who knows.

I dont know the Shell CEO's motivation. Personally, I take what industry executives say with a grain of salt. I base my opinions on outside evaluation. They problem with that is that most of the TRUE facts of the vast majority of the world's fields are STATE SECRETS. We dont really know what OPEC producers have in reserve, because they deny external assessments of their fields.

If you havent seen it yet in my argument, there is significant justified debate on both sides with regards to our oil supply. We dont really know whats out there, which is why need to distance ourselves from overdependance.

I'm not surprised we are having this debate. I am fairly connected to the energy, and have contacts high within the DoE. I attend seminars on the subject of energy. Unfortunately, the publics knowledge of energy is not good, and if there is a crisis, they always seem to blame the energy companies with giving little credence to the fact that the world uses a resource on a daily level in unimaginable levels.

Think of it this way, the world uses about 43 super tankers of oil a day. I guess its possible we'll grow supply to deal with using 60 or 70 super tankers of oil a day, but the scale alone should scare anyone.

I have to agree with Carzin here as much as I hate government subsidies. I am an oil field worker so when yall refer to the oil companies as the evil enemy who wants to see the price go ski high does that lump me in there? I know that since the price was 35/barrel in Jan of 2009 to the price being in excess of 100/barrel my pay has not really varied much but I have to pay 3.89/gallon for gas just like everyone else.

We need to research alternatives but we need to make sure the ones we invest in are viable options. LNG or CNG is extremely abundant here stateside but like Carzin said there has been a large uprising against fracking and if fracking were ever regulated to extinction then our vast reserves of recoverable natural gas would not be so vast anymore. We need electric cars, hybrid cars, CNG/LNG cars, as well as gas and diesel cars. It is a combination of all of these things that is going to fuel our future and we will not be able to rely on just one to meet our needs.

But just like oil, we can't develop a dependency on coal for our power plants, especially once the energy demand rises due to plug in cars being charged all the time. The only way to really meet that need is with nuclear and after the disaster in Japan it is hard to see much of a future there.

Before anyone blames the price of oil on the oil companies you need to look at who our country put in the White house, a man who has openly stated that he wants to find a way to bring gasoline prices in the US up to the amount in Europe. This will help further his agenda as well as limit the travel of citizens and their freedoms. While it is easy to blame the people getting "rich" off oil we need to take a serious look at our policy makers and what their motives are.

As I type this I am floating 50 miles south of New Orleans, LA on a brand new deep water drilling rig called the Noble Jim Day. We are currently contracted to Shell to batch set 6 new wells in the gulf but we are waiting on a permit to get to work. Since the moratorium on offshore drilling the permit process has been painfully slow. Shell is forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars a day for this rig to sit here, waiting on the government so we can drill more wells and increase our domestic supply. If the government would let us drill than can use the tax and permit revenues from the oil companies to pay for the alternative subsidies.

I agree 100% about your point of who is in the White House and his agenda. I would add, he isn't the only one with that same agenda. Take a look at who in our government screams the loudest about oil company profits, then look at how they feel about high gas prices and how they turn the conversation over to alternatives and you see their agenda is the same if not very similar.

one of the most staggering numbers i have heard on this issue is that 14,000 new cars are added on chinas rode a DAY. think of that! if all of these cars only burned 1 gallon of fuel a day that is an increase in gasoline consumption of 121,666 bbls a year. just in cars in china. then you have to look at how fast india is growing as well as other countries. we need to figure something out fast because lets face it. there are too many people fighting for too few resources and people still keep having families with 4, 5, and even 6 children!!! if every family had 6 children to replace the two parents i cant even imagine how horrible the planet would be. also another interesting tid bit. if all the food was grown organically something like 3 billion people would starve to death according to penn and teller. just not enough farm land to provide food for the amount of people we have