
121Economics of Energy Generation and Conservation Systems
that by 1970, the EROI of oil production had dropped to 25; and in 1990, it was somewhere
between 10 and 18. Today, the EROI of new energy oil production is somewhere between
3 and 4 [12]. This decline in the EROI is the result of having used up the most productive
sources such as the Spindle Top in Texas, and about half of the Ghawar Field in Saudi
Arabia, which were about 1,000 ft below the surface. In contrast, the elds in the Gulf of
Mexico are more than 20,000 ft below the surface and hold only a fraction of the amount of
oil that the Saudi Arabian and Texan oil elds once produ ...