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The evolution of human society was and still is closely related to the degree of exploitation, development and diversification of the energy sources. By stimulating the occurrence and the usage of new, more efficient technologies, capitalizing energy resources not only ensured the environmental conditions that are needed for the survival of human society, but also created the conditions that are required for development.
Starting to use coal as a primary energy source has led to the first industrial revolution. Discovering the ways to use oil and natural gas, by distillation or otherwise, gave a new impetus to the industrial development of the society. Basically, contemporary society represents the product of the transformations which are induced by starting to use coal, then oil and natural gases as sources of primary energy and as a source of raw material for a variety of products. In these conditions, the reduction of the volume that the reservoirs of oil and natural gas have, represent an undesirable perspective, due to the influences that they have on all of the products which are created and sold in the global economy; these can be direct influences, as raw materials are, or indirect influences, which concern the costs of the transportation and auxiliaries.
Unfortunately, the volume of oil and gas deposits which are in use is declining, while other deposits are found increasingly harder, at great depths and / or are very hard to exploit.
The decline of oil deposits has been foreseen by the American geologist Marion King Hubbert in 1956, in the work “Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels”, (Hubbert, 1956), which was presented at a session of the American Petroleum Institute, San Antonio, Texas.
As it was initially encountered with much skepticism, and became the target of many critics, the theory of the American geologist MK Hubbert, which stated that the top of the U.S. production will take place in the late '60s and early '70s, was restored in 1970, when U.S. production peaked, then started to decline.
Hubbert's curve was also confirmed in other fuels’ cases, (Lynch, 2003), such as natural gas. Hubbert proposed a method which was confirmed to other countries too, as it was considered to be a tool for estimating the future of the production of fossil fuel and rare metals deposits and, generally speaking, of any finite deposits.
It is clear that the reservoirs are not infinite, and somewhere, in a time frame which is, more or less, closer, they will end. When the energy consumption that is required to extract a barrel of oil will be equal to the energy value of it, no matter how high would the selling price of crude be, oil extraction activities shall no longer have any efficiency. The conclusion is valid for all fossil fuels, not just oil.
Another aspect that is to be considered, is the position of the energy from various sources in the matter of the costs of products that are sold domestically and abroad. Practically, the making of any product requires a consumption of energy, which is obtained from a certain source with a cost. Changing costs of the energy (by changing the price of fossil fuels) involves gradual changes on product prices. Unfortunately, reducing the quantities of existing resources and increasing production costs (due to the approach of the deposits that can be found at depths which are becoming increasingly larger, which raises special technological problems and involve a number of noticeably higher costs) led to the systematic increase of the price of fuels.
Figures 1 and 2 present the evolution of natural gas prices between 2005 and 2012, both for domestic consumption and for industrial use.
Figure 1. Evolution of natural gas price for householder consumers between 2005-2012
Figure 2. Evoluion of natural gas price for industrial consumers between 2005-2012