It's been a fairly well-kept secret that hasn't received much exposure on the networks or CNN, but as a matter of fact, there's another perspective—"abiotic theory"—which holds that perhaps oil is not finite after all. Chris Cooper reported the following in the Wall Street Journal on April 16, 1999:
Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana Prods
Oil Experts to Seek a Deeper Meaning
HOUSTON -- Something mysterious is going on at Eugene Island 330.
Production at the oil field, deep in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, was supposed to have declined years ago. And for a while, it behaved like any normal field: Following its 1973 discovery, Eugene Island 330's output peaked at about 15,000 barrels a day. By 1989, production had slowed to about 4,000 barrels a day.
Then suddenly—some say almost inexplicably—Eugene Island's fortunes reversed. The field, operated by PennzEnergy Co., is now producing 13,000 barrels a day, and probable reserves have rocketed to more than 400 million barrels from 60 million. Stranger still, scientists studying the field say the crude coming out of the pipe is of a geological age quite different from the oil that gushed 10 years ago.
Perhaps the only person who was not surprised was Dr. Thomas Gold (since deceased). According to Cooper, "Thomas Gold, a respected astronomer and professor emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, has held for years that oil is actually a renewable, primordial syrup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs, he says.
All of which has led some scientists to a radical theory: Eugene Island is rapidly refilling itself, perhaps from some continuous source miles below the Earth's surface. That, they say, raises the tantalizing possibility that oil may not be the limited resource it is assumed to be."
More recently, Forbes magazine reported on a team of Russian researchers who endorse the abiotic theory and say that new oil is accessible, but we simply need to drill deeper to find it. Click here to read the article.
Meanwhile, whatever is going on at the Eugene Island oil field remains something you probably haven't heard about on the evening news. Why not?
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