Then in the late 80’s the production of the well was reduced to less than 4000 barrels a day.  The well was considered depleted.  Then in 1990 the well started producing 15,000 barrels a day and reserves were estimated to be around 400 million barrels. A study of the geological age of the new oil was substantially different than the age of the oil pumped in the 70’s and 80s. The seismic data found that the oil was coming from a previously unknown deeper source.

This phenomenon is not unique to Eugene Island.  It is happening in other Gulf of Mexico wells and in oil fields in Alaska. Replenishment of oil fields was also recorded in Uzbekistan.  In the Middle East where oil has been pumped for 20 years it has been discovered that known oil reserves have doubled to over 680 billion barrels.

The growing reserves would require a continual source of dead dinosaurs and decomposing prehistoric plants. Or could there be another explanation for crude oil?

A theory gaining some prominence is that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a product of millions of years and organic decomposition. The evidence would indicate that there might be significant undiscovered oil reserves that would make today’s reserves seem meager.

The theory is that crude oil forms between the mantle and the crust as a natural by-product of what happens 5 and 20 miles below the earth’s surface.

The theory is that Methane (CH4), a common molecule found in quantity throughout our solar system is in huge concentrations and at great depth within the Earth. Where the mantle and crust meet at roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit pockets of extreme temperature causing the condensation of heavier hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation becomes crude oil. Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and reservoirs as natural gas.

In the geologically “cooler,” more tectonically stable regions around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs. In the “hotter,” more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize, producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes and vents in the ocean floor.

Depending on geological variations and movement of the earth crust, oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits in areas like Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of Mexico and Uzbekistan. When the vast, deep pools of oil break free from shifts in the geological strata the oil replenishes existing known pools of oil reserves.

The observations across the oil-producing regions of the globe that support this theory and the list of proponents begins with Mendelev (who created the periodic table of elements) and includes Dr. Thomas Gold (founding director of Cornell University Center for Radiophysics and Space Research) and Dr. J.F. Kenney of Gas Resources Corporations, Houston, Texas.

Dr. Gold presents compelling evidence for inorganic oil formation in his 1999 book, “The Deep Hot Biosphere”. He notes that geologic structures where oil is found all correspond to “deep earth” formations, not the haphazard depositions we find with sedimentary rock, associated fossils or even current surface life.  He also notes that oil extracted from varying depths from the same oil field have the same chemistry – oil chemistry does not vary as fossils vary with increasing depth. Another fact is that oil is found in huge quantities among geographic formations where assays of prehistoric life are not sufficient to produce the existing reservoirs of oil. So where then did it come from?

Another bit of evidence is that every oil field throughout the world has out-gassing helium. Helium is so often present in oil fields that helium detectors are used as oil-prospecting tools. Helium is an inert gas known to be a fundamental product of the radiological decay or uranium and thorium, identified in quantity at great depths below the surface of the earth, 200 and more miles below. It is not found in meaningful quantities in areas that are not producing methane, oil or natural gas. It is not a member of the dozen or so common elements associated with life. It is found throughout the solar system as a thoroughly inorganic product.

Even more intriguing is evidence that several oil reservoirs around the globe are refilling themselves, such as the Eugene Island reservoir – not from the sides, as would be expected from co-current organic reservoirs, but from the bottom up.

Dr. Gold strongly believes that oil is a “renewable, primordial soup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultra-hot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attached by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs.”

Smaller oil companies with innovative teams are using this theory to justify deep oil drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, among other locations, with some success. Dr. Kenney is on record predicting that parts of Siberia contain a deep reservoir of oil equal to or exceeding that already discovered in the Middle East.

In August 2002, in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US),” Dr. Kenney published a paper, which had a partial title of “The genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum.” Dr. Kenney and three Russian coauthors conclude:

The Hydrogen-Carbon system does not spontaneously evolve hydrocarbons at pressures less than 30 Kbar, even in the most favorable environment. The H-C system evolves hydrocarbons under pressures found in the mantle of the Earth and at temperatures consistent with that environment.

He was quoted as stating that “competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not evolve from biological materials since the last quarter of the 19th century.”

In our culture it is widely believed and well-established that at some point in the near future we will run out of oil. The world as we know it will end and unless we find another source of cheap energy we will turn the clock back to the dark ages.

If Dr. Gold and Dr. Kenney are correct, that “the end of the world as we know it” scenario is wrong then there is an inexhaustible supply of deep reserves of inorganic crude oil which is commercially feasible to extract that would provide the world with generations of low-cost fuel. Dr. Gold has been quoted saying that current worldwide reserves of crude oil could be 100 times more abundant than currently thought.