Analysis: Flow of oil assured?

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) — Although technology cannot create more oil, some industry experts argue new technologies can maximize oil usage with the discovery of more oil fields and extract more oil from current and future fields, while others debate the feasibility of technology saving “peak oil.”

The United States, the world’s largest oil and gas importer, currently produces some 8 percent of the world’s oil, but consumes some 25 percent, of which it imports nearly 60 percent from foreign nations, according to studies. That figure is expected to continue to climb from some 25 million barrels per day in 2005 to nearly 33 million bpd in 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., is expected to testify this week at a peak oil congressional hearing to address the inevitable challenges of peak oil — where the globe has consumed half of the world’s oil and reserves are now beginning to dwindle.

Bartlett said in a statement that there is an “urgency of the U.S. government responding to the threats to the U.S. economy and national security posed by global peak oil.”

A number of industry experts have expressed their views that oil has reached its peak.

UPI