Ex-Chevron Scientist Sees Opportunity in Oil at $100 a Barrel

The world isn’t running out of petroleum, he says: “There is plenty of oil left in the ground to last us many decades, if not longer.” Unfortunately, he adds, demand is accelerating even as the world is running short on the best grade of petroleum, light sweet crude. In making this distinction, Tertzakian treads a reasonable course between those who believe that some technological miracle will save us and those who foresee global chaos unless we slash consumption and switch to renewable energy today.

What’s economically recoverable depends on price. The higher the price rises, the more oil companies can afford to scavenge at the “fringes of our planet,” he says. “The industry starts chasing heavier and heavier grades of `non-conventional’ or `secondary’ sources of oil, like the Canadian oil sands in Alberta and the U.S. oil shales in Utah and Colorado.”

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