Birol is leading a groundbreaking reassessment of the worldwide outlook for oil supplies, investment and production that many believe will deliver bad news when it is released in November.
"We are very concerned about future oil supplies," he said. "We may have difficult days to come in the oil markets."
In five years, demand for oil may exceed 94 million barrels a day and continue rising, spurred by growth in China and India, the International Energy Agency estimates. Experts put daily global production at between 82 million and 86 million barrels, and even the most optimistic oil authorities can't see production keeping up with demand without a big boost from unconventional sources such as Canada's vast oil sands or U.S. oil shale. Getting crude from such sources is more difficult, expensive and environmentally harmful.
"Unconventional oil includes all these things like tar sands . . . and some people count all that stuff as oil," said Texas oil investor Jim Baldauf, who in 2005 helped found the U.S. chapter of the Assn. for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, which has affiliates in 22 countries. "If you do that, then you have a much rosier picture to look at."
Worries that oil production soon will fall short of demand or begin a steep dive aren't supported by the data his company has compiled, said consultant Daniel Yergin, chairman of Massachusetts-based Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of "The Prize," a Pulitzer-winning oil history. But anxiety about long-term supply, he said, has "contributed to this very fevered psychology in the oil market."
Cambridge researchers acknowledge that the Earth's oil production eventually will max out. But Cambridge Energy Research Associates director Peter Jackson said that day is continually being pushed back because sizable oil reserves still are being found and technologies are boosting yields and paving the way for deep-sea drilling and other options not previously contemplated.
California's 108-year-old Kern River oil field, for instance, was read its last rites several times over the years. But the field recently produced its 2 billionth barrel and is still going, thanks to ever-evolving recovery techniques.
Jackson's conclusion: Don't panic.
He expects worldwide output -- including the unconventional variety -- to continue rising and satisfying demand until at least 2020. Once production peaks, he believes it will level off in an "undulating plateau" before an irreversible decline sets in.
