andrewducker | Dec. 17th, 2008

George Monbiot asks Fatih Birol, chief economist of IEA, when will the oil run out?

"In terms of non-Opec [countries outside the big oil producers' cartel]," he replied, "we are expecting that in three, four years' time the production of conventional oil will come to a plateau, and start to decline. In terms of the global picture, assuming that Opec will invest in a timely manner, global conventional oil can still continue, but we still expect that it will come around 2020 to a plateau as well, which is, of course, not good news from a global-oil-supply point of view."

(tags: economics politics energy environment oil peak-oil resources)