Exxon Mobile CEO: Oil Volumes Will Keep Growing

Exxon Mobile (XOM) CEO Rex Tillerson's answers on peak oil during a CNBC interview Thursday with Maria Bartiromo were instructive:

Bartiromo ... asked Tillerson how Exxon could be expected to keep growing its reserves of oil and gas when $20 billion a year in capital spending through the rest of this decade will only result in an extra one million barrels a day in production volume, according to Exxon’s estimates.

Tillerson didn’t really answer the question, merely repeating his assertion that Exxon’s volumes will keep growing through the end of the decade. In a later exchange, he added that the world’s oil would not run out in his lifetime.

It's a dodge. While I'm no raving peak oil nutter, saying oil won't run out in his lifetime is in no sense equivalent to saying adding new supply isn't becoming challenged, which is the real point of peak oil proponents.