[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Chris

It was a fairly unsophisticated piece of messaging from the environmentalists of the time.

There really only were about 40 years of oil left in the 1980s, based on known recoverable reserves and rate of consumption. The messaging did get a bit more nuanced eventually - you might have heard the phrase “peak oil” doing the rounds about 15 years ago, with the claim that from that point on oil would get so hard to extract that it would be impossible to meet demand even if the reserves were there.

In reality all we have done during the 20th century is extract the easy oil. There’s really no shortage of it, because as it is found in ever more challenging places, our ability to get at it improves. As we shift to decarbonise the economy there should come a point where consumption drops off a cliff. I think it’s likely we aren’t going to run out of oil for the foreseeable future.

Yes, I wouldn’t dump the BP & Shell shares just yet. This country will look like Cuba in 30/40 years with people still running petrol/diesel motors long after they’ve stopped making them.