[Dog Gone]

For example, old abandoned oil wells for some reason seem to partially refill after being left alone for a decade or two.

The reason oil can be found in abandoned wells is because it is impossible to get all the oil out of the rock now. Oil doesn't quit flowing overnight. It just drops to levels where you're spending more money on electricity or gas to pump the well than it can produce economically.

Even in the very best rock, you're going to plug that well with 30% of the original oil in place still there.

So yes, there will be some further migration of the oil in the pores of the rock after a well is plugged. But this notion that reservoirs are replenishing themselves and that the supply of oil is endless is a stunning myth which is posted here at FR as if it's established fact. It's false.

[katana]

Endless supply? No, and I that's not what I meant to imply. Petroleum not a byproduct of the decomposition of 500 million years accumulated organic matter but a primordial element of the planet's structure? Maybe and I suspect yes. That is the essence (as I understand it) of Dr. Gold's theory. Maybe it's true and maybe not, but based on the fellow's history of overturning conventional dogma I'd hesitate to bet against him.