Chinese Perspective Offers Optimism for the Future of Oil and Gas

The state of the world’s oil and gas reserves is one of the great strategic issues facing the modern world. Aside from the debate and controversy surrounding the issue stands one of China’s foremost petroleum geologists, Professor Li Guoyu, whose new publication, World Atlas of Oil and Gas Basins , brings together decades of research into the industry to provide an optimistic theory for the future of oil and gas.

“The new World Atlas of Oil and Gas Basins is a culmination of my research and studies of world oil and geology carried out over the past 57 years,” said Professor Guoyu. “I am pleased to let the world know that I hold an optimistic viewpoint of the world’s oil and gas reserves and that my research can form a profound analysis and discussion of the past and present of oil and gas, and more importantly its future"

From the Sino-Russian steppes to the desert kingdoms of the Middle East, and from the war zones of central Africa to the rainforests of Latin America the World Atlas of World Oil and Gas Basins provides a truly global perspective on the state, and future, of the petroleum industry.

The atlas surveys each of the world’s five continents, covering 190 countries and 507 petroliferous basins, as well as 560 big and significant oil and gas basins. The atlas provides a welcome addition to the global database of the world’s energy resources and is therefore an indispensible source of information for the development of future strategies to exploit oil and gas reserves.

Combining industry knowhow with geological expertise Professor Guoyu develops a theory to suggest a larger abundance of oil and gas reserves worldwide than the conventionally pessimistic models. It concentrates on the correlation between sedimentary basins and the presence of commercially exploitable hydrocarbon reserves.

The atlas provides graphical examples of the striking interrelationships between world oil and gas reserves, production and price, which support Professor Guoyu’s theoretical approach to sedimentary basins and hydrocarbon production potential.

While the World Atlas of Oil and Gas Basins is an essential reference source for petroleum geologists and reservoir engineers working in oil exploration and production, it is also a valuable teaching aid for university courses as well as a unique cartographical viewpoint of the world.