I am very grateful to the President of the World Petroleum Conference for the great honour you have bestowed on Schlumberger and myself by inviting me to present this lecture in memory of Thomas Dewhurst. As the President of the Institution of Petroleum Technologists, which has now become the Institute of Petroleum, Thomas Dewhurst was instrumental in getting the idea of a World Petroleum Congress off the ground and he presided at the first Congress in London in July 1933.

At that first conference Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger, who had founded their company only 6 years earlier in 1927, presented the results they had obtained in Romania using their new electrical well logging techniques. The early 1930s were depressed times for the oil industry as the brothers reported and I quote, "Difficult economic conditions have prevailed in Romania during the last two years and the oil companies have been obliged to cut down all ‘luxury expenses’. Under such circumstances, electrical coring has had to be conducted in view of its strict immediate financial return." In other words, oil companies were only interested in new technology if it improved their bottom line. It seems to us in the service sector that some things never change! The story of the Schlumberger brothers is typical of an industry that has prospered by a commitment to progress through technical innovation. The oil industry is a wonderful example of what the American economist Julian Simon had in mind when he said, "Resources come out of peoples' minds more than out of the air or the ground".

This morning I would like to give you my perspective on the evolution of our industry and describe the tremendous opportunities new technology is bringing to improve our overall performance and enhance our contribution to society. This review is necessarily personal and incomplete and I apologize in advance to those who will feel that I have not done justice to the full range of our industry's achievements.

First, I'd like to take a quick look backwards to understand our present situation. After being a key factor in winning World War II, the oil industry literally powered the development of Western economies. Oil companies were considered modern, clean, innovative, and above all, reliable suppliers of products which were essential to improving living standards and the environment.

During the 1970s, the industry lost some of this image by failing to meet the expectations of consumers and shareholders. The Club of Rome, in its 1972 report "Limits to Growth" stated that the total remaining global oil reserves were only 550 billion barrels, while Jimmy Carter predicted that oil reserves would be substantially used up by the end of the 1980s.

Concern that political and reserve constraints would limit oil supply caused prices to escalate.

Higher prices slowed economic growth and by the end of the decade oil dem

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