When an oil executive is worried . . .

It’s finally come to this: Even oil executives are sounding alarms about U.S. oil consumption.

“The ease with which we all lived in the last 50 years, with cheap energy, is coming to a close,” John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., told a City Club luncheon crowd Friday in Portland. “The next 50 years cannot be like the last 50 years.”

The oil demand-and-supply equation, Hofmeister said, now constantly flirts with crisis. Americans, he said, need to develop a sense of privilege rather than entitlement when it comes to energy use.
At the helm of Houston-based Shell Oil since March 2005, Hofmeister aims to take that message to 50 cities around the country by the end of 2007. In his talks, he is promoting a panoply of supply-side measures, from expanding access to oil fields that are off-limits today to developing alternative and renewable energy resources. Shell, he said, also is eager to persuade consumers to conserve.

Hofmeister spent a few minutes answering questions for The Oregonian after his speech. Here are excerpts. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Oregonian