Discovery Paves the Way to an Oil Peak

It's not an easy time to wait for news of big finds. For the longest time, the national oil companies didn't want oil so high that we would pursue alternatives to oil. That's changed now. Iran and Venezuela seem to want so much to see the West hobbled that they're ignoring the long-term view. And the Saudis are running out of oil.

The sense from most of the dreamers out there is that alternative energy is the ticket. The sense from the hardliners is that dirty coal is the answer.

The real answer, at least for the next decade, is that we need to find more oil.

That's why this Devon-Chevron find matters so much. It's what we will be hearing about much more in the future, and more of these finds will keep oil from going to $100, where it would be headed otherwise.