Here are some thoughts and links on when the science/industry/government/economists think oil will run out. It clearly shows that no one agrees on anything and the science of estimating oil remains is clearly dubious, to this point. What interests me is that scientists that believe it is sooner rather then later, believe the oil industry is hiding it. My question is, why? From a purely business aspect the doom impending end to oil would sky rocket prices, and would send the oil industry scurrying to support alternative fuels knowing they need a replacement product to keep alive in this business. Meaning if they themselves thought oil was at an end, they would be talking about it, jumping up the price and investing that money heavily into a future product. But they’re not. So in my opinion they don’t seem to believe this even secretly. What are your thoughts?

 Run out in 4 yrs time(London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre):

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2656034.ece

Same article explains BP statistical analysis says we have at least 40 yrs left.

Run out can happen as early as next year or possibly 25yrs from now.(Info here is two years old)

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7156

Here it’s said theoretically we’ll never run out of oil.

http://economics.about.com/cs/macroeconomics/a/run_out_of_oil.htm

42.6 years in this article if predicted by the Society of Petroleum Engineers(in 2005) and

the US Department of Energy estimates  anywhere from 14 years to 105 years.

http://ask.yahoo.com/20050207.html

"Alberta's estimated oil reserves was raised from total conventional oil reserves of around 5 gigabarrels (billion barrels) to the much larger figure of around 180 gigabarrels by the inclusion of the Athabasca Oil Sands deposit by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (AEUB),^[1] placing Canada second only to Saudi Arabia.^[2] Other estimates (BP Statistical Review of World Energy) place Canada's petroleum reserves in the 17 gigabarrel range, by only counting oil sands under development. Although Alberta contains about 75% of Canadian conventional oil reserves, most of the other provinces and territories, especially Saskatchewan and offshore Newfoundland, hold significant production and reserves.^[3]

Estimates of oil sands reserves can be difficult to understand because oil sands contain a semisolid form of oil known as bitumen. Companies only book oil sands as proven reserves after they finish a strip mine or thermal facility to extract them and an upgrader to convert them to synthetic crude oil (syncrude or SCO). On the other hand, the Alberta government bases its reserve estimates on drilling cores and wireline logs from 19,000 wells drilled in the oil sands. Alberta uses the term "crude bitumen" rather than "crude oil" and refers to "established reserves" rather than "proven reserves" to differentiate them from oil company estimates. These estimates did not attract much attention until the prestigious Oil and Gas Journal added them to its estimates of Canada's proven oil reserves, which quadrupled North American reserves. Alberta production and Canadian exports are steadily increasing even as Canada transitions into a mature basin much like the United States. The addition of unconventional reserves, with their correspondingly long production lifespans, cannot by themselves guarantee steadily increasing production rates, but they can guarantee stable production rates over a long period of time.

When oil prices were low, oil sands companies such as Suncor Energy and Syncrude reduced their costs to around US $15/bbl. As a result, the oil price increases of 2004-2006 to $50-60/bbl made oil sands production profitable enough to cause over $100 billion worth of oil sands projects to be planned and initiated. Alberta oil sands production in 2005 was around 0.4 gigabarrels per year. It is expected to rise to 0.7 gigabarrels per year or 67% of Albertan production by 2010. As of 2006, Canada was the only major OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) producer showing an oil production increase. The other major OECD producers (the United States, United Kingdom, Norway and Mexico) were all in decline. According to the Conference Board of Canada, total crude oil production in Canada is projected to increase by over 10 per cent in 2007, following an increase of 5 per cent in 2006. As a result of new nonconventional oil projects, total crude oil production is forecast to increase by an average of 8.6 per cent per year from 2008 to 2011.^[4]"

Alberta could increase its production of synthetic crude by 2.5 times and we would still have 180 years of production ...

With that said I'm a firm believer we will never run out of oil. Over the next 20 years ecconomic development in China and India will result in each country consuming more energy than the entire world consumes today; overall energy needs will be 3 to 4 times what they currently are. At the same time there are practical limitations to the ammount of oil we can collect, produce and transport which prevent dramatically higher consumption of oil for energy.

What this means is that the cost of oil is going to continue to skyrocket for the future and other forms of energy are going to become more cost effective. initially Nuclear and Hydro Electric power will be used because they are far cheaper than other forms of energy production but take a long time to produce facilities and thus will not keep the price of energy from increasing; on top of that environmental conserns will limit the number of facilities that can be produced. The next stage will be Wind generation and then Solar power.

In 20 years you will start to see oil phased out for energy use and it will move towards being used exclusively for the production of plastics.

Nice article HappySqurriel, I've read about oil sand before too, it's an interesting market. It's also confusing to know for sure what's being factored into all these estimates, it seems that different people are adding and subtracting different things, while also estimating use, there are just so many factors involved. Another thing addressed is what people are actually talking about when saying oil will run out. What I mean is, are they estimating a time when production is lower then demand? Or when the actual oil deposits are entirely gone? these in itself are 2 totally different arguements that I guess should both be addressed.

I think the real problem is not that we'll run out - like HappySquirrel, I think we'll move away from an oil-based economy before that hapens.

The problem is that it's unlikely that this will happen without serious economic damage first. I.e., we'll reach a point where the cost of oil is prohibitively expensive, but there won't be sufficient alternative-energy infrastructure in place to make the switch without a lot of hardship.

This scenario is likely to happen if we keep to anything close to our current pace, but man-made disasters could speed the process considerably. I recently read a book on Saudi Arabia which estimated that single atacks on key points in the Saudi oil industry, or coordinated attacks on several points, could slow the production long enough to cause a huge spike in oil prices. He also outlined a doomsday scenario, wherein the world economy would essentially collapse. It's significantly less plausible than the other possibilities, but plausible enough to be scary, given Saudi Arabia's instability.

Continued development of the Central Asian fields will alleviate this somewhat, but I'm afraid will take a sharp kick in the ass before the world changes its ways. We're just not smart enough to plan ahead.

This is key to understanding our energy needs.  There is plenty of oil left on the Earth, but our ability to increase our rate of oil production without drastically increasing cost is limited, and we are running into the wall soon.  The problem is not running out to the last drop, the problem is what happens when we produce less oil today than we produced yesterday?

I think it's not a question of 'when' will we run out of oil (75% of the big oilfields are too deep to extract oil from) but to what point will it make sufficient money to earn the winnings back. Cause the deeper you have to go for oil the more expensive it becomes.

And because of poluting the enviroment and messures in favour of 'bio' energies oilwinnings become more scares around the 50's this century... But we won't see climax in the oil market till 2025-2030 aprox before it starts its decline (And i hope oil magnates will start to invest in other {more clean or efficient} resources such as water or biomass... Btw: When u use oil (diesel or benzine) u can get aprox 40% of the energy stored in the oil out of it which is used for driving engines (the rest converts into heat and gasses).

short answer is not any time soon. 

as oil prices continue to go higher, which is extremely likely, there will be money to be made in alternative energy sources and businesses will take advantage of this.  currently most such sources need government subsidy but i'm rather optimistic about the pace of progress in those technologies.

my pet peeve on energy: nuclear power has never caught on in the US and i attribute it entirely to stupid political and special interest groups.

Oil prices will get higher but we'll not run out of it in at least 50 years, and by "not run out" I mean that there will be enough oil to provide gas to our cars just as today. And the chinese will go into the mass-market automobile era too.

Btw, that brings me to the main solution: the chinese. Don't underestimate the ability of the chinese to track new sources of oil that today are regarded as un-economical to exploit.

I'm sick and tired of all these people that are scaring people with whatnot, in their never-ending need of wanting to control others. Remember, in the 80's and early 90's there used to be widespread fear and "experts" warned us about global over-population, mass starvation, the atomic war, mass spreading of AIDS, exploitation of rain forests and nuclear power plant catastrophes á la Chernobyl. Those problems have largely been taken care of, or just weren't destined to become a problem for humanity to begin with.

Today it's "in" and hip to be aware of and afraid of (and to scare others, so that you stand out as the "good person") global warming and stuff associated to it, like oil consumption.

Humbug.

Wasn't it just 20 years ago that they were perdicting that we would run out of oil in 15 to 20 years? My how time flies.

 The problem with the Oil sands is that extraction methods to get the oil out of the ground and away from the sand are by far the most environmentally damaging process involved in oil extraction. To me the big concern isn't when will we run out, but what are we willing to do to the world to keep Oil coming. We've already bunged up our atmosphere enough with what we've used so far. We've got to turn it around, regardless of how cheap an energy source Oil is (and Coal too!)