Please remember the realities of Reserve Growth.

Yes of course. Geologists have been trying for decades to explain this strange phenomenon. It was noticed almost a century ago that after the first well penetrates a reservoir, the reservoir begins to grow. At first everyone thought it might have been "oil multiplying bacteria" causing the reserve to grow. It was thought that the drilling bit caused the bacterial contamination.

Then other theories were put forth. Some thought that relieving the pressure in the well caused oil to push up from below, filling the spaces left by the oil pumped out.

But then a few years ago someone threw a monkey wrench in the works. Shell pointed out that occasionally reservoirs shrink instead of growing. Their reserves shrank, in a single year, by 20 percent. And it is rumored that Kuwait's reserves have shrunk by 50 percent. And there is fear throughout the Middle East that reserves in that area are about to shrink by at least 50 percent, perhaps by as much as 65 percent.

But the reasons why reserves sometimes grow and sometimes shrink is still one of the greatest mysteries of geology.

Ron Patterson