[NormsRevenge]

I remember falling asleep as I listened to some guy explain how the earth is like a giant refinery of products that are continually being produced as part of a geocosmic life supporting body.

pretty incredible, the amount of untold renewing energy and wealth that lies beneath our feet.

Please, don't upset the Mole People tapping into it. ;-)

[Dallas59]

Maybe it also means that our Solar System is full of this stuff.

[Robert A Cook PE]

True, true.

Or, more accurately, possibly true.

And, most accurately, potentially true: over the very, very long run.

But, IF (big, unknown IF!) oil/natural gas ARE being formed continuously, then they form deep at relatively low rates, must rise (slowly) through the overlaying rock to accessible depths, must be trapped and accumulate (slowly) at those accessible depths by only a limited places of suitable layers of rock, then accumulate in enough density to warrant re-drilling and extraction. Think of fat, thick sponge sitting in a small pool of water. Putting a single straw in the middle of the sponge is going to pull the water right around the straw, but takes a while to reload the sponge so a second extraction can be made. (Some oil wells are now (almost) re-profitable by the way, after sitting idle for a few years.) But emptying the bowl of water takes a long, long time.

Oil consumption rates must go down: because burning oil for fuel is a waste of the chemicals available.

...

Once methane sources underground is known, the rest of the chained oil compounds can be (relatively) well accounted for by synthesis of longer chains.