Shell CEO: Easy-to-produce oil, gas to peak in next decade

Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer said Tuesday he expected easy-to-produce oil and gas would likely peak in the next 10 years.

Van der Veer said while depletion of maturing conventional resources would certainly play a key role in peak production, lack of access to remaining large reserves, such as in Saudi Arabia, was also a central component in his forecast.
Remaining resources, such as gas trapped in difficult-to-tap reservoirs or oil sands and shales, will require increasingly costly investments per barrel to produce.

“It’s becoming technologically expensive, capital intensive and lead times are growing longer,” van der Veer said at an energy supply scenario seminar at the Center for Strategic International Studies.

International Herald Tribune