Big discoveries don't change oil's equation

Around the world, scientists have discovered new fields that will yield about 10 billion barrels of oil, putting 2009 on track to become the most fertile year in energy exploration since 2000. But it is a measure of how profligate the world is now that even such large discoveries can do little to forestall the day when oil runs out.

The New York Times cited more than 200 discoveries in "dozens of countries, including northern Iraq's Kurdish region, Australia, Israel, Iran, Brazil, Norway, Ghana and Russia." The fields have been found by big companies and small. BP, for example, uncovered a field in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico that may be the largest ever found there.

Many of the discoveries were deep under water, in places where it will be both expensive and difficult to extract. But the quickening pace of discovery, said The Times, was spurred in large measure because of the run-up in petroleum prices a few years ago.

When oil was selling for way more than $100 a barrel, it made all kinds of hard-to-get oil suddenly profitable to extract. At $35 a barrel - a price touched earlier this year - some of those same fields wouldn't be worth the trouble. Company executives say they need a stable price at about $70, where oil is trading now, to go get the crude.

After years of talk about the end of petroleum, about "peak oil" - some might expect such big discoveries to inspire celebration. But to put this year's 10 billion barrels in perspective: Last year, the world used 31 billion barrels of oil.

In other words, as impressive as this year's discoveries are, they so far represent a fraction of the oil we'll use over the same time. We're still using more than we're finding. We're still running out.

Advocates will see that as yet another argument for drilling off Virginia's coast. But even rough prospects - and cutthroat economics - will do nothing about the basic flaws in such reasoning.

n The offshore territory from which Virginia could theoretically reap royalties is strangely small, providing potential riches to Maryland and North Carolina at our expense.

n There is no mechanism in place to provide Virginia with royalties from offshore drilling, and so no basis on which to determine whether drilling is worth the risk.

n Exploration off Virginia's Outer Continental Shelf has been so meager that nobody knows what's out there, again making promises of riches a triumph of optimism over reality.

n Neither the Navy nor NASA has much interest in flying around oil platforms off Virginia's coast.

The oil off Virginia's coast isn't going anywhere. If and when it can be harvested safely, it will be even more valuable than it is now. All the more reason to wait until the day - if it comes - when drilling off our shore becomes worth the risk to our economy and way of life.