End of Oil and Gas Still Many Decades Away

With the June 16 release of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014, there is some continuing good news. The end of oil and natural gas is still at least a half-century or more away. The reserves-to-production (R/P) ratios for both fossil fuels are well above 50 years.

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The end of oil is further away than ever. Back in 1980, the R/P ratio (a.k.a., time to depletion at current production rates) for global oil reserves was less than 30 years -- now it has increased to more than 53 years. In other words, over the past 35 years we have been discovering new oil reserves at a far faster rate than we have been depleting old reserves.