ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses primarily on how perceptions of peak oil have influenced public policy, there is also a literature looking at how policies influence global oil supply, and what reactions governments might adopt when oil supply does actually peak. As concern about the potential implications of peak oil production heightens, a call for a political response has become louder. The chapter describes the information about the global oil market is far from being fully transparent. The world's oil resources are obscured deep below the earth's surface, making a definitive measure of total resources unattainable. The classification of oil reserves, there is an important distinction based on different physical and logistical characteristics. Extracting and refining these non-conventional energy resources tends to be much more capital and energy intensive than for conventional oil, making them more expensive to produce than conventional sources. Evolving technology, economic growth, fiscal regimes, geopolitics, and environmental preferences will help determine the timing of peak oil production.
