Will we run out of oil?

It was on a 2003 trip to Saudi Arabia and tour of the country’s oil fields that curiosity got the best of energy investment banker Matthew Simmons. For several years after writing a white paper on the world’s largest oil fields, Simmons, of Houston, held doubts about OPEC’s ability to continually pump more crude, and questions raised on the weeklong trip compelled him to dig deeper.

“I tend to think there’s plenty of oil,” O’Grady said. “I just think it’s in geopolitically hostile areas. But getting bogged down in the peak oil argument misses the point. Regardless of whether we’re in the peak oil period or not, we ought to act the same way.”

stltoday