Bob Tippee
Editor

The leader of an international petroleum-industry research group believes technology will raise the amount of oil ultimately produced to three or four times currently estimated levels of reserves.

Olivier Appert, chairman and chief executive officer of Institut Français du Pétrole, Rueil-Malmaison, France, expects growth in conventional reserves to come from a combination of increased rates of recovery from reserves now on production, from discoveries and extensions, and from improved recovery from the deposits yet to be found.

Recovery improvements from nonconventional resources, such as extra-heavy oils and tar sands, will yield further supply.

IFP, which operates as both a research center and industrial group, treats the natural limits of fossil-energy resources as one of two key, long-term challenges for the industry. The other challenge is climate change.

Future supply
Future discoveries and extensions of known fields, Appert estimates, will add more than 100 billion tonnes to oil reserves, currently estimated at 145 billion tonnes.
"The main difference is that future discoveries will be smaller than past ones and more difficult to find," he says.