Flaws seen in resource models behind crisis forecasts for oil supply, price

Henry R. Linden
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago

Failed predictions of oil crises go back a century, yet there continues to be a ready market for purveyors of scenarios that predict imminent peaking of global productive capacity and associated shortages and large price increases. Today's pessimists are the intellectual heirs of the late American geophysicist M. King Hubbert.

From the 1950s to the early 1980s, Hubbert used his famous bell-shaped curve technique to model the rise and fall of annual oil production in the U.S. Lower 48 and the world to predict the ultimate recovery and the time and rate of peak production. He did the same for Lower 48 natural gas and consistently understated the actual potential of both resources because of flaws in his methodology.

An excellent recent critique of Hubbert's approach is that by M.A. Adelman and Michael C. Lynch of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.1 Among the most prominent pessimists on the outlook for adequate global oil productive capacities today are James J. MacKenzie of the World Resources Institute2 and petroleum consultant Colin J. Campbell.3 4 5 In fact, four journals recently published special features on this topic-Energy World in June 1996,6 Oil & Gas Journal on Apr. 7, 1997,7 Scientific American in March 1998,8 and Science on Aug. 21, 1998.9 These journals presented reasonably balanced accounts of the views of the pessimists, who predict peaking of global productive capacities between 2000 and 2020, and the optimists, who believe that technological progress and advances in the geosciences will push this date out to well beyond 2020.

It is noteworthy that the International Energy Agency of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development seems to have been swayed by the alarmists and expects the peak to occur between 2010 and 2020, whereas the U.S. Energy Information Administration has not and projects substantial and slightly accelerating growth of global productive capacity growth through 2020.

To illustrate this divergence of views, Campbell's most pessimistic (and preferred) scenario, published in June 1996,3 projected peak global crude oil production of about 24 billion bbl in 2000 on the assumption that the ultimate recovery will only be 1,750 billion bbl. Of course, that level of global production was already achieved in 1997 when, at year-end, cumulative production reached about 810 billion bbl and proved reserves stood at 1,020 billion bbl.10 This accounted for 1,830 billion bbl, or 80 billion bbl more oil than Campbell's ultimate value, with prospects for annual production levels in excess of 24 billion bbl over the foreseeable future.

However, Campbell rejects the validity of current proved reserve estimates and arrives at an "adjusted" value of only 659 billion bbl and a "median probability" value of 836 billion bbl for year-end 1996.4 Campbell's most optimistic scenario assumes an ultimate recovery of 2,250 billion bbl, which corresponds to a production peak of about 28 billion bbl in 2010.3

MacKenzie's range of ultimate recoveries is 1,800-2,600 billion bbl, with corresponding peak production levels of 27-33 billion bbl in 2007 and 2019, respectively.² But it should be noted that both Campbell and MacKenzie favor the lower end of their ranges of ultimate oil recoveries. In contrast, the U.S. EIA, in its latest reference (base) case, projects a global productive capacity of 43 billion bbl in 2020, although this does include natural gas liquids.¹¹

Moreover, as mentioned above, EIA's projected productive capacity growth over each 5-year interval from 2000 to 2020 increases somewhat, which suggests that the peak is quite remote. Of the total productive capacity in 2020, EIA expects 53% to come from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, compared with 42% in 1996. The EIA also projects $20/bbl (1996 dollars) through 2020, whereas Campbell and the other pessimists expect imminent price shocks.

Other liquids

The proved global crude oil reserves of 1,020 billion bbl as of Jan. 1, 1998, correspond to 43 years of supply at a 1997 rate of production of roughly 65 million b/d. Of this total, OPEC held about 797 billion bbl, with 663 billion bbl held by its Persian Gulf members. In addition, there may be somewhere between 125 billion bbl and 155 billion bbl of NGL reserves based on the ratio of a now obsolete, Dec. 31, 1987, assessment of proved NGL and natural gas reserves12 and Jan. 1, 1998, natural gas reserves of 5,086 tcf.¹⁰

EIA's value for total 1996 petroleum liquids production-often referred to simply as "oil" production-is 71.8 million b/d.11 The 8.5 million b/d difference between this value and reported crude oil production of 63.3 million b/d in 199610 is not readily reconcilable because reported NGL production in 1996 was only 5.5 million b/d.

This leaves 3 million b/d that can probably be accounted for by the inclusion of various condensates and hydrocarbon feedstocks, synthetic fuels, fuel alcohol, petroleum additives, and refinery gain in "oil." It is likely that fuel ethanol and methyl tertiary butyl ether comprise the largest volumes of such additives.

Changing resource perceptions

It should be noted that proved crude oil reserves have increased by about 400 billion bbl since the days of the "energy crisis," while roughly 500 billion bbl were produced over that period. At the same time, estimates of remaining, ultimately (i.e., technically) recoverable oil and natural gas liquids resources by optimists such as the author have increased to as much as 3 trillion bbl, which would correspond to an ultimate recovery approaching 4,000 billion bbl-roughly twice the estimates of the pessimists, although these do not include NGL.

A major part of this turn-around in the perception of world oil supply prospects has been due to advances in exploration, development, and production technologies and in the geosciences-advances that are still maintaining their rapid pace. It is, therefore, not improbable that this 3 trillion bbl of remaining oil potential will eventually turn out to be not only technically but also economically recoverable. This would meet the 1996 rate of consumption of 71.5 million b/d of petroleum liquids for 115 years.

The still-limited exploration of so many frontier areas is further reason for optimism on the true global oil potential. To these conventional oil resources must be added huge amounts of more marginal hydrocarbon resources, such as oil shale, tar sands, and other bitumens. In its 1997 International Energy Outlook, the EIA quotes data which project nonconventional oil resources of 1-5 trillion bbl in 25 years at prices of $20-40/bbl in 1995 dollars, respectively.¹³

Synthetic crude oil from the Canadian tar sands and Orimulsion made from extra-heavy oil produced in the Orinoco belt of Venezuela are already commercial products, and the eventual economic exploitation of oil shale also looks feasible in the light of ongoing technology improvements. A major share of these enormous conventional and unconventional oil resources can be converted into transportation fuels that meet very stringent emission standards at costs that compare favorably with many other proposed options.

U.S. potential

Even in the U.S., there remains a large conventional oil resource base that could eventually be exploited. In contrast to year-end 1997 proved reserves of only 22.5 billion bbl,14 a recent (October 1992) authoritative study conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy projected remaining recoverable resources at various price and technology assumptions (including year-end 1991 proved reserves) ranging from 99 billion bbl to 204 billion bbl.15 The details are shown in Table 1 [24,280 bytes].

A 1989 study by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists reported in Fisher et al.15 arrived at a similar result: an estimate of 247 billion bbl of crude oil recoverable as of Dec. 31, 1986, with advanced technology at prices of $25-50/bbl (1986 dollars).

Although no comparable data on price and technology elasticity are available, assessments of the U.S. liquid fuels resource potential must also consider remaining technically recoverable natural gas liquids. An obviously out-of-date 1989 estimate is 30-35 billion bbl at year-end 1987,12 compared to year-end 1997 proved reserves of 8.0 billion bbl. This would raise the crude oil potential of 204 billion bbl at $27/bbl (1992 dollars) with advanced technology, shown in Table 1, to 234-239 billion bbl of total petroleum liquids. Thus, while it may generally be more profitable and practical to explore for and produce oil outside the U.S. because of the relatively high costs and regulatory constraints in the U.S., the U.S. could theoretically have met its 1997 liquid fuels requirements of 6.8 billion bbl from conventional domestic resources for as long as 32 years even after deducting the roughly 16 billion bbl of cumulative crude oil and natural gas liquids production from 1992 through 1996.

Just the 204 billion bbl of crude oil resources recoverable at up to $27/bbl (in 1992 dollars) with advanced technology as of year-end 1991, corrected for about 12 billion bbl of production during the following 5 years, would be equivalent to 83 years of supply at the 1997 production rate of 2.3 billion bbl.

Obviously, $27/bbl in 1992 dollars is a steep premium over current and projected oil prices, and there is no suggestion here that it would be rational to pursue U.S. oil self-sufficiency at this price for the sake of questionable "energy security" considerations. However, compared to many other proposed energy policy initiatives, this premium seems relatively attractive.

It should also be noted that several old oil and gas provinces, and especially the Gulf of Mexico, are virtually exploding with new and cost-competitive production thanks to such technologies as 3D seismic, tension-leg platforms, and horizontal drilling.

Hubbert deficiencies

In the light of these very positive oil reserve and resource data, it is puzzling that advocates of alarmist views still use variants of M. King Hubbert's methodology16 to support their contention that global oil production may be less than a decade away from beginning its inevitable long-term decline and to draw even more alarmist conclusions about domestic oil production.

As noted before, Hubbert was the prime advocate of since-discredited hydrocarbon exhaustion scenarios. In analyzing U.S. oil production, Hubbert made three overly simplistic assumptions:

• First, that in a given producing region there was a predictable amount of oil that would be ultimately recovered.
• Second, for a given region, oil production would rise, reach a maximum, and then decline.
• Third, that annual oil production would be symmetrical around the year of peaking.

Hubbert argued that, during the decline phase of production, prices would rise, new technologies and processes would be used to extract the remaining recoverable oil, and eventually exploration and production costs would become too high and new energy sources would be introduced.

Under these assumptions, cumulative oil production should follow a sigmoidal (logistic) curve and the smoothed data for annual production versus time in a given region such as the Lower 48 states should follow a simple inverted bell curve. The area under the bell curve would then correspond to the total amount of oil that will ever be produced, the so-called "ultimately recoverable resource."

Campbell, MacKenzie, and other pessimists justify their continued acceptance of most of Hubbert's premises on the basis that he correctly predicted peaking of U.S. Lower 48 production in 1970. Of course, this had nothing to do with any geological factors, but was merely a rational reaction to the realities of the global oil market.

As noted above, there is plenty of expensive oil left in the U.S. It will be shown below that even under these constraints Hubbert greatly underestimated the total quantity of oil that will be produced in the Lower 48 states. According to MacKenzie,² Hubbert also predicted peaking of global production of conventional crude oil in 2000, for which there is not even the remotest chance. A perhaps far-fetched scenario is that what will eventually turn around global oil production will not be limitations on supply but reductions in demand due to changes in energy technologies.

Among these changes will be doubling and tripling of automotive efficiencies as surface transport shifts to electromotive drive, which will ultimately use hydrogen not derived from oil as the fuel, and continuing encroachment on oil consumption by more efficient and environmentally more benign natural gas technologies.

An early critic of the methodology underlying alarmist oil (and also gas) exhaustion scenarios for the U.S. was William L. Fisher, now director of the Geology Foundation, holder of the Leonidas T. Barrow Centennial Chair in Mineral Resources, and senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin. Fisher is best known for his long and distinguished tenure as director of the Bureau of Economic Geology and chairman of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Texas and as the former president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the American Institute of Professional Geologists, the Association of American State Geologists, and the American Geological Institute. In 1992 he chaired the study of the U.S. oil resource base cited in Table 1.¹⁵

Cumulative U.S. production at year-end 1991 was reported in this DOE study as 164 billion bbl, which, when adding year-end 1991 proved reserves of 25 billion bbl, gives total discoveries of 189 billion bbl. At year-end 1993, U.S. cumulative production of 169.142 billion bbl plus proved reserves of 24.184 billion bbl of crude oil and lease condensate reported by the EIA was 193.326 billion bbl, which is a rough check of this value.17 Thus, as shown in Table 1, the ultimate U.S. crude oil recovery could conceivably rise to somewhere between 263 billion bbl and 368 billion bbl, according to the prestigious panel that conducted the 1992 DOE study.

The reason this may still be a credible assessment is that further advances in exploration and production technologies and the geosciences will probably exceed present expectations and continue to lower the marginal cost of previously uneconomic domestic resources. As noted above, these projected ultimate recoveries exclude the large quantities of ultimately recoverable NGL. There are no readily available data for just the Lower 48 states that can be directly compared to Hubbert's final (1980) projection of 163 ? 2 billion bbl of ultimate crude oil recovery.16 Other Lower 48 ultimate recovery estimates attributed to Hubbert are 150-200 billion bbl in 19562 and 170 billion bbl in 1974.¹

In its annual reserves reports, the EIA only shows graphic summaries of cumulative production and total discoveries of crude oil and lease condensate for the total U.S. However, through private communications of the detailed numerical back-up data and Alaska cumulative production from Steven G. Grape of EIA's Office of Oil and Gas, Reserves and Production Division, the total discoveries for the Lower 48 states shown in Table 2 [23,681 bytes] have been derived for year-end 1993 through 1997.18 It can be seen that the totals already exceed Hubbert's ultimate crude oil recovery projections, even after allowing for a reasonable fraction of lease condensate in case Hubbert's values exclude lease condensate.

Similarly, in 1990, Fisher reported year-end 1989 Lower 48 cumulative crude oil production of 150 billion bbl, which, when adding proved reserves of 20 billion bbl, totals 170 billion bbl-also at least a match of Hubbert's ultimate recoveries.19 Thus, according to Hubbert, we should have exhausted Lower-48 crude oil reserves and resources by now.

The recent estimate by MacKenzie of World Resources Institute² of 189 billion bbl of ultimate Lower 48 crude oil recovery is obviously far too low as well in view of year-end 1997 cumulative production plus proved reserves of 184 billion bbl and continuing production of about 1.9 billion bbl/year of Lower-48 crude and lease condensate since 1994. In fact, this rate has recently been increasing somewhat.

MacKenzie's 189 billion bbl compares to Fisher's 1990 estimate of 260-300 billion bbl that again incorporates the amply demonstrated impact of technology elasticity.19 Using the Lower 48 data from the 1992 DOE assessment, year-end 1991 proved reserves of 19 billion bbl, and cumulative Lower 48 production at year-end 1991 of 154 billion bbl estimated from Fisher's year-end 1989 value of 150 billion bbl, potential Lower 48 ultimate crude oil recovery (i.e., again assuming only foreseeable technology advances and no more than $27/bbl crude oil in 1992 dollars) could range from 234 billion bbl to 314 billion barrels (Table 1). This is certainly well above the 189 billion barrels claimed by MacKenzie, whose value for Lower 48 cumulative crude oil production at year-end 1995 is 160 billion bbl, corresponding to roughly 152 billion bbl at year-end 1991.

Global outlook

As noted before, on a global scale, the picture is even more reassuring. The use of Hubbert's bell curves in global projections is especially questionable because the economic and technological stimu* that may allow the profitable extraction of yet undiscovered, bypassed, or increasingly marginal hydrocarbon resources are even more difficult to assess than for the U.S.

Proved oil reserves continue to rise, although reserve additions have been constrained by the oil glut, the 1998 price collapse, and the flat price outlook. Today's proved crude oil reserves value of 1,020 billion bbl (compared to 648 as recently as year-end 19801) may bear a similar relationship to the remaining technically recoverable resource base as the U.S. data-i.e., it is at most 25% of this base. Admittedly, the value of 3,000 billion bbl of total remaining petroleum liquids cited above is at the high end of current estimates, but these estimates have notoriously erred on the low side.

Therefore, using variants of Hubbert's static bell curve technique to predict early peaking of world oil productive capacity on the basis of ultimately recoverable crude oil resources of 1,800-2,600 billion bbl, of which about 810 billion bbl had been produced as of Jan. 1, 1998, seems highly questionable. (The International Energy Outlook 199713 gives a range of ultimate conventional oil resources of 2,094-2,807 billion bbl, corresponding to 292-1,005 billion bbl of undiscovered oil, 699 billion bbl of cumulative production as of Jan. 1, 1993, and 1,103 billion bbl of identified reserves.)

The area under this bell curve is likely to continue to grow more rapidly than cumulative production plus proved reserves for many years thanks to exploration and production technology advances and discovery of new oil provinces and new producing horizons in existing fields. For example, the Caspian Sea region, where oil production started over a century ago, is now projected by EIA to produce 7 million b/d in 2020 compared with only 1 million b/d in 1990.11 Others expect as much as 5 million b/d by 2010 if necessary investments in exploration, production, and transportation are made.²⁰

Certainly, the history of failed predictions of imminent oil crises supports the view that the world will probably still be swimming in oil in 2020 and that we can readily achieve and then further exceed the 118.7 million b/d (reference case) production capacity level in 2020 projected by EIA to meet a projected demand of 116.1 million b/d.11 As noted before, this corresponds to a productive capacity of 43 billion bbl/year, far above Campbell's and MacKenzie's highest projected peaks of roughly 28 billion bbl and 33 billion bbl, respectively.

Energy security

The "energy security" argument as it applies to oil supply interruptions is also fallacious.

The only domestic shortages ever caused by the series of Mideast wars and revolutions were created by misdirected U.S. government intervention. For example, the supposedly devastating 1973-74 Arab oil embargo had no significant impact on total U.S. oil imports, so efficient was the oil market even then. EIA statistics show net imports of 6.0 million b/d in 1973, 5.9 million b/d in 1974, and 5.8 million b/d in 1975.

Even the temporary price fly-ups have moderated to a hardly troublesome point thanks to the ever more efficient global oil market. According to the EIA, a 4 million b/d, 6-month interruption, typical of what happened in past Mideast crises, would raise world oil prices by at most $4/bbl for up to a year with use of just the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.21 Without use of the SPR, prices would temporarily rise by $2-11/bbl, depending on elasticity of demand-still cheap compared to the energy strategies favored by World Resources Institute and similar organizations that favor early phase-out of fossil fuels. In any event, the Persian Gulf oil exporting countries need cash at least as much as the world needs their oil, especially the Western Hemisphere, which could at least theoretically be self-sufficient.

There is also no evidence that a rise in Muslim fundamentalism leads to constraints of oil supplies, judging from the behavior of Iran, a notorious breaker of OPEC production ceilings. Iraq is also desperate to increase its production and exports and has a projected capacity of 7.8 million b/d by 2020,11 well above its prewar production level of 2.9 million b/d. It is probably true that the Iraq war was not fought to save "democracy," but to protect the highly oil export- and import-dependent allies of the U.S. and the entire global economic system.

The obvious question is-was there any alternative? Continued U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf is required for numerous geopolitical reasons, so to assign the total cost of $50 billion/year, as suggested by MacKenzie, to maintenance of uninterrupted oil flow is probably an overstatement. But, on this assumption, this cost amounts to less than $8/bbl of U.S. oil consumption-a real bargain compared to the preferred options of the scarcity advocates. In this context it is important to note that in 1997 U.S. oil imports represented only 8% of total merchandise imports, compared with 24% in 1974 and the peak of 32% in 1980.

All of these factors suggest that "energy security" arguments to support questionable energy policies are not going to be very convincing in an environment that, according to EIA's reference case, anticipates essentially flat constant-1996 dollar oil prices in the $20/bbl range for as long as 2020 and, by that time, more than doubling of OPEC crude oil plus natural gas liquids production to 60.5 million b/d, a modest decline in North Sea production, and a resurgence of former Soviet Union production to above its former peak of 12 million b/d.11

Sustainable system

The optimistic outlook for global oil supplies and prices for at least 20 years, and probably a decade or two longer, should not be used as an argument against aggressive investments in technologies that accelerate the progress towards a sustainable global energy system. Instead, we should take advantage of this valuable lead time to accelerate the development and deployment of cost-effective low and zero carbon-emission energy technologies.

Certainly, by 2030 or 2040 we should have reached the point when global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have peaked and begin a rather rapid decline in order to allow stabilization of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration at roughly double preindustrial levels-i.e., 550 ppm by volume. A companion study has shown that this calls for a global carbon emission budget between 1991 and 2100 of no more than 1,000 billion metric tons (gigatonnes).

To this, even the additional use of 3,000 billion bbl of petroleum liquids would contribute only 340 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC), and 20,000 tcf of natural gas another 290 GtC. Clearly, this points to a least-cost decarbonization strategy that relies heavily on efficient utilization of the large remaining global endowment of hydrocarbon fuels during the next several decades. After that, high-tech renewables such as photovoltaic, solar-thermal, wind, and hydropower should be capable of moving us swiftly toward a cost-effective, sustainable, zero carbon-emission energy system.

An additional, although not sustainable, option may be the conversion of fossil fuels to hydrogen and carbon dioxide, and the sequestration of the carbon dioxide in geologic formations or the deep ocean.

References

1. Adelman, M.A., Lynch, M.C., "Fixed View of Resource Limits Creates Undue Pessimism," OGJ, Vol. 95, No. 14, Apr. 7, 1997, pp. 56-60.
2. MacKenzie, J.J. "Oil as a Finite Resource: When is Global Production Likely to Peak?" World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C., March 1996.
3. Campbell, C.J., "Oil Shock," Energy World, No. 240, June 1996, pp. 7-12.
4. Campbell, C.J., "Better Understanding Urged for Rapidly Depleting Reserves," OGJ, Vol. 95, No. 14, Apr. 7, 1997, pp. 51-54.
5. Campbell, C.J., Laherrere, J.H., "The End of Cheap Oil," Scientific American, Vol. 278, No. 3, March 1998, pp. 78-83.
6. "Fossil Fuels," Energy World, No. 240, June 1996, pp. 6-18.
7. "Reserves Growth: Geology, Technology, Economics," OGJ, Vol. 95, No. 14, Apr. 7, 1997, pp. 43-60.
8. Scientific American, Vol. 278, No. 3, March 1998, pp. 78-95.
9. Kerr, R.A., "The Next Oil Crisis Looms Large-and Perhaps Close," Science, Vol. 281, No. 5380, Aug. 21, 1998, pp. 1128-31.
10. "Worldwide Look at Reserves and Production," OGJ, Vol. 95, No. 52, Dec. 29, 1997, pp. 38-39.
11. "International Energy Outlook 1998," Energy Information Administration, Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting, U.S. Department of Energy, April 1998, Doc. No. DOE/EIA-0484(98).
12. "IGT World Reserves Survey as of December 31, 1987," Institute of Gas Technology, 1989.
13. "International Energy Outlook 1997," Energy Information Administration, Office of Integrated Forecasting, U.S. Department of Energy, April 1997, Doc. No. DOE/EIA-0484 (97), p. 37.
14. "U.S. Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids Reserves, 1997 Annual Report," Advance Summary, Energy Information Administration, Office of Oil and Gas, U.S. Department of Energy, September 1998, Doc. No. DOE/EIA-0216 (97) Advance Summary.
15. "An Assessment of the Oil Resource Base of the United States," Oil Resources Panel, Commentary by William L. Fisher, Noel Tyler, Carol L. Ruthven, Thomas E. Burchfield, and James F. Pautz, Bartlesville Project Office, U.S. Department of Energy, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, October 1992, Doc. No. DOE/BC-93/1/SP.
16. Hubbert, M.K., "Techniques of Prediction as Applied to the Production of Oil and Gas," in "Oil and Gas Supply Modeling," Saul I. Glass ed., pp. 16-141, proceedings of symposium held at the Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., June 18-20, 1980, National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 631, May 1982.
17. Private communication, Steven G. Grape, petroleum engineer, Energy Information Administration, Office of Oil and Gas, Reserves and Production Division, Dallas, Aug. 16, 1994.
18. "U.S. Crude Oil, Natural Gas and Natural Gas Liquids Reserves," 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 Annual Reports, Energy Information Administration, Office of Oil and Gas, U.S. Department of Energy, (October 1994, October 1995, November 1996, December 1997), supplemented by Reference 14 and by private communications dated Aug. 16, 1996, Sept. 22, 1997, and Sept. 30, 1998, from Steven G. Grape, petroleum engineer, EIA Office of Oil and Gas, Reserves and Production Division, Dallas.
19. Fisher, W.L., "Assessing the Remaining Oil and Gas Resource Base of the U.S.," presented to the Conference on The Energy and Environmental Agenda of the 1990s: The Role of Energy Technologies, sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, Washington, D.C., Apr. 9, 1990.
20. Grace, J.D., "Caspian Production Export, Investment Outlooks Sized Up," OGJ, Vol. 96, No. 34, Aug. 24, 1998, pp. 67-71.
21. "International Energy Outlook 1994," Energy Information Administration, Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting, U.S.

    Department of Energy, July 1994, Doc. No. DOE/EIA-0484(94).

The Author

Henry R. Linden is Max McGraw Professor of Energy and Power Engineering and Management and Director, Energy & Power Center, at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago. He has been a member of the IIT faculty since 1954.

Linden helped organize the Gas Research Institute (GRI), the U.S. gas industry's cooperative research and development arm. He served as interim GRI president in 1976-77 and became the organization's first elected president and a director in 1977. Linden retired from the GRI presidency in April 1987 but continues to serve the group as an executive advisor and member of the Advisory Council.

From 1947 until GRI went into full operation in 1978, he served the Institute of Gas Technology (IGT) in various management capacities, including four years as president and trustee. In 1965 he organized IGT's wholly owned subsidiary, Gas Developments Corp., and served as a director, chief operating officer, and chief executive officer until 1978.

Linden also serves as a senior advisor of Putnam, Hayes & Bartlett Inc., an economic and management consulting firm, and on the boards of several companies.

He worked with Mobil Oil Corp. after receiving a BS in chemical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1944. He received a master's degree in chemical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now Polytechnic University) in 1947 and a PhD in chemical engineering from IIT in 1952.

Copyright 1998 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.