Opec's quotas are based upon reserves, so it's in every opec country's best interest to overstate their reserves.

Personally, I hope we run out of cheap oil just so alternatives are forced onto the market. I'll accept a lower standard of living for a while if it means bankrupting the saudis and iranians.

We're coming to the end of the petroleum age sooner or later. Personally I hope its sooner. But I don't know if I buy the conspiracy theory angle of the article. The truth is just never that interesting, that there's a secret international conspiracy to keep quiet to avoid global panic. More likely there's just a lot of conflicting data on the matter so no one can state for certain that we've hit the peak already. A worldwide bureaucracy just wouldn't be that tightly organized and uniform.

It's not hard to see the angles on this one, though, and it's not really to the "Bilderberger/NWO/CFR OMG" end of the spectrum, but is only recognizing that a lot of very powerful interests have a clear motive to try to keep oil prices low when perhaps they should be rising considerably.