According to Bora, the notion of depletable resources leads to the general belief that prices would tend to increase over the next couple of decades due to diminishing availability and increase in extraction costs. On the contrary, he added, the petroleum industry has so far been able to develop an array of sophisticated technology that allows cost to be reduced while increasing production.

Bora said that the interplay between geology and technology and the dynamics of the marketplace would continue to remain the primary determinants of the price of crude in the 21st century. He indicated that, on a global level, accumulated production of crude oil isestimated to be 700 billion barrels as compared to 1,600 bbl of projected remaining discovered and undiscovered reserves. "This means that we have produced about 40 per cent of the conventional resources of crude oil," he added.

According to Bora, though it is possible to imagine a distant period in time when crude oil resources would be depleted, there is little reason to believe taking into consideration the ongoing technological developments, that the limitations in the resource base will raise prices to balance supply and demand, even at a much higher level of consumption than today.

"The concern, therefore, that should occupy the minds of policymakers and petroleum professionals is not the volume of resources that exist in the earth's crust, but the ingenuity of human effort that will be needed to bring this source of energy to the consumers at an affordable price," Bora said.

The second issue, according to him, related to supplies and hence the future of crude oil stems from the fact that adisproportionate share of the world's proven oil and gas reserves are found in a handful of countries. Bora said that estimates of resources "suggest that the heavy oils in the Orinoco belt in Venezuela and the tar sands in western Canada approximately equal the identified coventional crude reserves in a large part of the world".

"Thus, even if the conventional oil rich producers want to raise prices on the strength of their substantial production capacity, there are limits to how far this could be done," he added.

The other speakers at the meet included Indian Oil Corporation chairman and managing director MA Pathan, IBP chairman and managing director SN Mathur and others.