The interesting thing to me about the “are we running out of oil” debate is that those who know the most about the oil business and with the most at stake in the answer — the major investor-owned oil companies — by and large aren’t worried. The further away you get from the oil producers themselves, the more you encounter worriers.

In that vein, it’s worth reading this summary of BP CEO’s John Browne’s interview with Der Spiegel that appeared yesterday. The only investor-owned oil company that I am aware of that has any substantial disagreement with Browne’s analysis is Chevron. But then again, Chevron is relatively terrible at finding oil compared to their competitors, so perhaps their worries about depletion are handy rationales for poor past performance.

By the way, I wrote an essay on oil depletion for Chevron’s “Will You Join Us?” webpage when it was initially launched, but, alas, it hasn’t seemed to change Chevron’s mind much.