Although crude oil is still vastly available in the earth’s crust, it is not an infinite resource. At some point it will eventually be exhausted. The demand for crude oil has increased by gigantic proportions. However, discoveries of new oil fields and investing in the oil industry has helped keep up with the increasing demand for oil. The crucial question is, how long will the oil resources last?
Advanced technology has made drilling oil more effective and efficient. With the aid of new methods it is possible to draw almost 65% of the oil as opposed to the old methods. Better infrastructure and more investments have also made the drilling of oil wells more effective. Currently most of the transportation is dependent on oil and many industries are born out of or lean on by products of petroleum. Although alternative sources of energy are now applied like solar and wind energy, it is still a long way to be completely independent of crude oil.
There has been much debate and predictions of the remaining resources of oil, over the last few years. A lot of factors need to be taken into consideration before oil resources can be declared scarce. Even oil wells proven depleted can be able to draw crude if technology advances. In such a scenario it is impossible to make the accurate observation of when the oil resources will be completely exhausted. Such a change can make predictions go utterly false. The statistics of countries reporting their proven reserves of oil also is not much assuring to rely on. While some countries are obliged by law to report honest statistics, others are influenced by political and economic conditions. So there is a strong possibility that these statistics do not paint the true picture.
Analysts, economists with a positive outlook believe that the search for alternative sources of energy will be given an impetus long before the world sees scarcity of oil. High oil prices will be the stimulus for spurring the development in renewable energy. When prices on oil are low there is very less reason to seek out alternative sources of crude oil. In fact as the oil price soars, alternatives sources of energy may prove more competitive. However, unconventional sources of energy will only be in demand when they can be exploited against high prices on petroleum. The alternative sources need to be at competitive prices than crude and to be economically feasible.
