Richard Pike plays the odds on Today

Today's Times newspaper in the UK has reported an assertion by RSC chief executive Richard Pike that world oil reserves have been seriously underestimated. 

Dr Pike's argument that global oil will last longer than most people believe had already been published in the highly-respected journal Petroleum Review. 

The Times, in a two-page feature about North Sea and world oil reserves, refers to the Petroleum Review article written by Dr Pike, a former oil industry executive, which argues that proven oil reserves may be twice the conventional figure.  

The PR article draws an important distinction between proven reserves and the most likely production from oil fields. It also shows that the global proven reserves are underestimated because of the historic convention used in defining these terms.  

The implications of his argument are radical, as it means that the fossil fuel threat to the environment will last much longer - possibly up to 100 years - than previously envisaged by analysts and commentators. 

Dr Pike was also quoted on LBC, London's premier radio station, last night, after he said that daily energy-saving gestures increasingly adopted by individuals to reduce carbon emissions were well-intentioned but trivial and that instead the big picture should be addressed by reducing reliance upon fossil fuels. 

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