Task facing oil firms

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33384, 16 November 1973, Page 12

Task facing oil firms

By 1985, the oil industry will have to find more oil than is contained in the Middle East’s currently proved reserves if it is to preserve an accepted ratio of production to reserves, the senior group managing director of the Shell Company (Mr G. Wagner) said in Germany recently. Mr Wagner said that total proven world reserves of crude oil — excluding s2m in sales Lamborghini, of Italy, sold cars worth more than s2m during the London Motor Show at Earls Court, the company has announced. The cars cost British buyers from $16,000 to $32,000 each, depending on the model.

those in Russia, China, and Eastern Europe — were about 500,000 m barrels. Annual production was 16,000 m barrels, he said, which gave a reserves to production ratio of 30 to 1. The generally accepted minimum ratio was 15 to 1, Mr Wagner said. To avoid falling below this ratio in 1985, when demand was expected to have doubled, the industry would have to discover a further 400,000 m barrels in reserves. Past experience had shown that new producing areas could be developed, he said. About 18 years ago neither Libya nor Abu Dhabi were producing oil, yet today their annual production satisfied the needs of West Germany and the Benelux countries. The search for oil was becoming more difficult and expensive, Mr Wagner said. In, the future, off-shore areas would have to provide an even greater proportion of production than at present. Off-shore oil currently com-

prised one barrel in every five. There was growing concern about the security of oil imports, Mr Wagner said. The Middle East and African countries now held two-thirds of the world’s reserves of crude oil, and the possibility of them being replaced as the major sources of supplies in the next 10 to 15 years was “quite remote.” In the last 10 years, oil production had risen more than 90 per cent, Mr Wagner said. The world’s tanker fleet had trebled in size, and natural gas had become an important source of energy. Ten years ago natural gas was little used outside the United States; now it supplies 10 per cent of Western Europe’s energy needs.