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There are a couple articles on PO & investing :

http://www.journalofindexes.com/


Black Gold, Texas Tea: http://www.journalofindexes.com/contents.php?id=631

Lots of interesting graphs.


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')Many oil company executives have declared that the age of cheap energy is over. They believe this is true because we have extracted nearly all of the crude that was easy to find and easy to refine. To understand $70 oil there is no need to prove that there is 1.2 trillion barrels in global reserves, as some experts suggest. What matters is that since 1986 we have been burning more oil than we discover, and that since 1998, there has been a fragile balance between supply and demand.

We are finding oil reserves at a lower rate than we are using them up. We are finding reserves at 7 billion barrels per annum while consuming oil at 30 billion barrels per annum.[3] This is why the British Petroleum Company (BP) is re-engineering itself into a total energy company (petroleum, gas and alternative fuels). BP has invested billions of dollars into research and development of New Era energy products. It is preparing itself for a post-petro economy. BP is investing prof-its from higher oil prices into new sources of revenue (includ-ing non-fossil fuel). They are a prudent steward of their wealth.

Continuing on the supply side, oil output from the U.S. and the North Sea has declined since 1970 and 1997, respectively. As for OPEC, OPEC’s reserve and production data have been state secrets since 1982. Production figures are more reliable when estimated from independent data reports, which confirm O P E C’s reported production. However, unlike publicly traded oil companies, OPEC production is not subject to independent accounting firm audits. Although no one can verify the data, Figure 2 estimates OPEC production at six percent spare capacity. Tight capacity limits OPEC’s ability to control prices.