Researchers suggest that the Earth may never completely run out of oil because there are many reserves located in hard-to-reach areas.
For hundreds of millions of years, oil has accumulated in deep deposits beneath the Earth’s surface, formed over epochs as the remains of plants and animals sank into the ground, covered by layers of sand, silt, and rock. Gradually, heat and pressure transformed these remains into liquid form. About 165 years ago, humans began to exploit this natural resource to produce plastics, gasoline, asphalt, and many other products at a rate faster than its replenishment, according to Live Science.
One of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve facilities near Beaumont, Texas. (Photo: Joe Raedle).
According to researchers, the Earth will never be completely depleted of oil as some oil reserves are located in areas that are difficult to access, such as Antarctica or at depths that are challenging to quantify, let alone extract. David MacDonald, emeritus professor of petroleum geology at the University of Aberdeen in the UK, states that because tectonic plates are largely responsible for the location of oil fields, researchers have a good understanding of them.
The process of ocean basin development creates conditions suitable for rapidly burying organic material, while the movement of the Earth’s crust provides the heat and pressure needed to convert that material into oil. Subduction and rifting activities can create basins where oil accumulates. As a result, oil wells are more likely to be found in certain areas than others.
Globally, the remaining extractable oil is estimated to be around 1.6 trillion barrels, according to a 2023 survey by Rystad Energy. Additionally, there are oil fields that remain undiscovered. This figure is vague, although the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the amount of undiscovered oil to be around 565 billion barrels in 2012. The answer to the question of when humanity will exhaust its extractable oil resources is quite complex.
For decades, industry experts have predicted that the amount of oil available for extraction will last another 50 years, based on known reserves. This figure is unlikely to change significantly due to the method of calculation. The number of years until oil runs out is calculated by dividing the current known reserves by the global annual demand. Estimates of reserves increase as new oil fields are continually discovered, but the remaining time does not change much because humans consume newly discovered oil at a rate comparable to the speed of discovery.
Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView, a research firm in Washington, D.C. that tracks energy trends, believes that artificial intelligence will facilitate the discovery of new reserves, and advancements in technology will aid in extracting oil more efficiently. This could increase estimates of the total extractable oil reserves. While the world seeks to reduce fossil fuel usage by transitioning to electric vehicles, demand is expected to remain stable. The International Energy Agency predicts that oil consumption will peak in 2030 and then decline, suggesting that humanity may have enough oil to last longer than the predicted 50 years.
