Total, Shell Chief Executives Say `Easy Oil' Is Gone

The days of so-called ``easy oil'' are over, making it harder to meet demand without complicated and expensive projects, the heads of two of Europe's largest oil companies said today.

The International Energy Agency, an adviser to energy importing nations, estimates oil supply will have to rise 39 percent to 116 million barrels of oil a day by 2030 from about 86 million barrels a day now to meet world demand.

Meeting such targets with conventional oil sources will be ``extremely difficult,'' Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive officer of Total SA, Europe's third-largest oil company and its largest refiner, said at a conference in Paris today. New supply will be based on ``huge high-tech'' projects.

Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's largest oil company, said countries no longer seek Shell's help with conventional reserves, such as onshore oil or gas that's cheaper to develop than offshore fields.

``We can't expect profits in easy oil,'' Van der Veer said at the same conference. ``If there is easy onshore oil, people don't need Shell.'' He said there are enough opportunities for international oil companies to invest in complex, large oil and gas projects using new technology.

Explorers are pushing further offshore as technology improves and fields onshore and in shallow water run dry. Oil companies are expected to increase exploration spending by 9 percent worldwide this year, according to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Spending on exploration in deep water will rise 44 percent to $18 billion by 2011 from $12 billion this year, a report by consultants Douglas- Westwood Ltd. said yesterday.

Paris-based Total said today it would be pumping 240,000 barrels a day by mid-April from a new field in Angola called Dalia, about 135 kilometers (83 miles) offshore in waters as deep as 1,500 meters, or nearly a mile down.

Developing that field cost $4.6 billion, an increase of 53 percent from the $3 billion spent to develop another offshore Angolan field called Girassol, de Margerie said today. By comparison, costs for Usan, a 160,000-barrel-a-day project off Nigeria, will cost $7 billion, he said...