Big Oil warns of coming energy crunch

Big Oil warns of coming energy crunch
By Carola Hoyos in London
Published: August 4 2005 18:35 | Last updated: August 4 2005 18:35

International oil companies have advertising campaigns warning that the world is running out of oil and calling on the public to help the industry do something about it.

Most of the executives ofThe world's five largest energy groups generally maintain that oil projects are viable with the price at which they test a project’s viability is within the around $20 a barrel. range. But their advertising and some of their companies' own statistics appear to tell a different story.

ExxonMobil, the world's largest energy group, said in a recent advertisement: “The world faces enormous energy challenges. There are no easy answers.” And the companies' statistics back up the sentiment. In The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View, the Irving, Texas-based company forecasts that oil production outside the Organisation ofthe Petroleum Exporting Countries, the cartel that controls three-quarters of the world's oil reserves, will reach its peak in just five years.