LONDON — If a diplomat is "an honest man sent abroad to lie for the good of his country" (Sir Henry Wotton, 1612), then oil industry executives used to be the business world's equivalent of diplomats.
The big international companies were chronically optimistic about the extent of their reserves, and state-controlled oil companies were even more prone to exaggeration. But now we have the spectacle of oil companies telling the truth about oil supplies — or at least more of the truth than usual.
The occasion was the recent Oil and Money conference in London, and the most spectacular truth-teller was Christophe de Margerie, CEO of the French oil company Total, one of the international "big five." Last year his predecessor, Thierry Desmarest, caused a flutter in the industry by predicting that world oil output would peak around 2020. This year, de Margerie said that "100 million barrels (per day) . . . is now in my view an optimistic case."