Deterioration + Dependence = Disaster

Michel T. Halbouty

As a result of the impact of falling world oil prices, the worldwide oversupply of oil, the hostile raids and takeovers, and the retrenchment of the global petroleum industry, over a brief period of five years much of the U.S. petroleum industry has slowly disintegrated.

Exploration programs have been especially hard hit, and the losses incurred can be measured not only by balance-sheet assessments but by the decline in our national energy security and the devaluation of our greatest asset--the professionals who have been terminated or retired from our once world-premier manpower pool. In addition, major budgetary cutbacks in research and development programs have also necessitated reductions in people and projects. The deterioration that the petroleum industry has sustained in exploration programs and in other activities has had a ripple effect throughout all segments of the nation's industrial complex and its support structure. Our rising import levels, combined with our falling production, produce a devastating equation: Deterioration + Dependence Disaster. Possible recommendations are made and solutions discussed to alleviate the conditions which exist in the industry.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91038©1987 AAPG Annual Convention, Los Angeles, California, June 7-10, 1987.