This is a key, and very false statement, but it's critical for those making this argument.
In almost every case, geologists and petrophysicists believe that oil is formed in shales or other source rock, and has migrated upward until it reaches a trap or seal which it cannot penetrate. That is almost NEVER where the oil itself was formed.
It leaks upward, just like an air bubble trying surface from underwater. Subtle things, like deep earthquakes, far too mild to be felt at the surface, can fracture rock and permit oil or gas to migrate upward from where it is currently trapped.
I wish I had a dollar for every well I've been involved with that tested rock where it's obvious oil used to be.
Some fields will refill, simply because a new migration path for oil has been opened. It does not imply in any way that the supply of oil is limitless.
We know that there is quite a bit of complex organic material in outer space. That may be another clue that oil doesn't just come from the decay of ancient plants on earth, but could have been among the available components when the planet originally coalesced at the origin of the solar system.
As you say, probably everything runs out sooner or later. But in the case of oil, it may be later. The jury is still out.
You don't mean the dreaded report: GOOD SHOWS, BUT NO COMMERCIAL HYDROCARBONS?
. . . which seems to indicate that oil/gas might be seeping up geologically--i.e. sloooly--all over the place. And we just don't notice that upmigration anywhere except where it gets stopped and a little of it gets trapped?. . . does not imply in any way that the supply of oil is limitless.Not sure just why that
It just seems to indicate that a "limitless" supply of (very hot, very high-pressure) hydrocarbons is very deep in the earth, probably mostly if not entirely inaccessible.
You must have missed this part of the article:
"Analysis of the ancient oil that seems to be coming up from deep below in the Gulf of Mexico suggests that the flow of new oil "is coming from deeper, hotter formations and is not simply a lateral inflow from the old deposits that surround existing oil fields..."