ARCO CEO SAYS AGE OF OIL ENTERS FINAL DAYS
Date: 11-Feb-99
Country: USA
"We've embarked on the beginning of the last days of the Age of Oil," Mike Bowlin, Chief Executive Officer of Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO) said.
Bowlin, who heads the fifth largest U.S. oil and gas company, was addressing a Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) conference here.
In the first decades of the new millennium there would still be a large and healthy market for oil, but demand for other fuels would grow more quickly, Bowlin predicted.
"Global demand for clean energy - natural gas, renewables, electricity and new energy technologies - will grow faster than overall demand for energy, including oil and coal," he said.
Demand for cleaner fuels, he said, was being driven by fears that "greenhouse gas" emissions caused by burning fossil fuels are warming Earth's atmosphere.
Energy companies could recognise growing demand for a wide array of fuels or "ignore reality and slowly but surely be left behind", he said.
Bowlin predicted that natural gas, a relatively benign fossil fuel, would provide a growing share of the world's energy needs, particulary in developing countries.
ARCO expected the balance between oil and gas in its own reserves to shift to a 50/50 ratio over the next 10 years from about 60 percent oil and 40 percent gas at present, he said.
Bowlin also noted that ARCO had pioneered the development of cleaner burning gasoline in the state of California and was collaborating with General Motors Corp to develop environmentally friendly fuel cells that may one day replace conventional gasoline-fuelled engines.
