Abstract
SCIENCE SERVICE of Washington, D.C., reports that Mr. A. J. Byles, president of the American Petroleum Institute, assured members at their sixteenth annual meeting that exhaustion of American petroleum and products was beyond the limits of man's powers of prediction. During the last decade, a number of facts pointing to their inexhaustibility have come to light. Proved reserves are now estimated at twice the amount they were in 1925, in spite of the volume of oil withdrawn. Oil has been found at greater depths, and in some cases even below old pools; moreover, there still remain unexplored more than a billion acres of geological formations which may prove to be oil-bearing. Deposits of bituminous coal are to all intents and purposes unlimited, and these can be drawn upon if necessary to meet the demand for motor fuel. Further, more than a hundred billion barrels of oil are said to be obtainable from shale oil deposits. Improved scientific methods of discovery and production have facilitated greater recovery of oil per well and more economical usage of oil. Mr. Byles expressed the view that rumours of oil scarcity were spread merely in order to frighten people into advocation of federal control of the industry.
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Inexhaustibility of Oil Resources in America. Nature 137, 573 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137573b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137573b0