The crude oil and natural gas markets have a long colorful history. To understand them, one needs some economic theory. The dominant view, of a fixed mineral stock, implies that a unit produced today means one less in the future. As mankind approaches the limit, it must exert ever more effort...

Gordon Campbell Watkins was my friend for forty years. He freed me, as the Scots poet says, from many a blunder and foolish notion. We joined forces twenty years ago, when the basic data on hydrocarbon scarcity were starting to disappear. (Adelman and Watkins, 1996). A revised updated version...