Colin J. Campbell

Dr. Colin J. Campbell is a petroleum geologist.

Affiliations

 * Advisory Board, Post Carbon Institute
 * Patron, Oil Depletion Analysis Centre

Professional Background
"After finishing a Ph.D. in geology at Oxford University, C. J. Campbell joined Texaco in 1958 as an exploration geologist in South America, later moving to BP with assignments in Colombia, Australia, and Papua. In 1968, he joined Amoco in New York as regional geologist for Latin America, becoming Chief Geologist in Ecuador in 1969. With the opening of the North Sea, he returned to England in 1972 as General Manager of the Texas independent Shenandoah Oil Corporation, before rejoining Amoco to become Exploration Manager in Norway in 1980. In 1985, he was appointed Executive Vice-President of Fina in Norway. He is now a petroleum consultant and has had commissions from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate; Bulgarian government; European Commission; Amoco; Shell; Esso; Amerada; Mobil; and others. He specializes in oil resource assessment, having published and spoken widely. His book The Golden Century of Oil was published by Kluwer in 1991, and The Coming Oil Crisis by Multi-Science Publishing Co. in August 1997. He has co-authored several major studies on world reserves of oil and gas and their depletion for Petroconsultants as based on their authoritative data."

"Former Executive Vice President, Fina Exploration, Norway, he is Chairman and Founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) and Visiting Scientist at Uppsala University in Sweden. He has published three books and numerous articles on oil depletion."

Leader of the "Neo-Hubbertians"
Campbell, "the leader of the Neo-Hubbertians, is a petroleum geologist from Ballydehob, Ireland, and author of The Coming Oil Crisis (1997). He worked for Texaco as an exploration geologist and then at Amoco as chief geologist for Ecuador. He is a Trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Center (ODAC) and the founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO), originally a network of 24 oil scientists. ASPO has association members like Halliburton and financial sponsors like Schlumberger, but Campbell is critical of the Bush-Cheney Administration for 'collectively having personal investments of as much as $150 M in oil companies' (ASPO, 2002)." 

Consulting for "Big Oil"
"Support for a remedial program of oil exploration and development versus switching to research and development of alternative energy sources tends to be found among oil experts who are consultants to the industry. While accepting some of the values of the New Age, they largely remain loyal to their calling as oil geologists and wildcatters. The leading trio of Jean H. Laherrere, Colin J. Campbell, and L.F. (Buz) Ivanhoe have worked for, or with, the leading firm modeling oil fields, Petroconsultants of Geneva. Since the 1950s, they have been fed data on oil exploration and production by just about all the major oil companies, as well as by a network of about 2000 oil industry consultants around the world. They use this data to produce reports on various matters pertinent to the oil industry, which they sell back to the industry." 

Publications

 * The Coming Oil Crisis, Multi-Science Publishing Co. Ltd. (April 1, 2004) ISBN 0906522110.

Contact details
Staball Hill Ballydehob County Cork, Ireland Telephone: (353)283 7533 E-mail: colincampbell@eircom.net

SourceWatch Resources

 * peak oil