Discoveries of new oil increase in 2009

Today's NY Times has an article on new oil discoveries over the past year.
Several main points:

• new discoveries are the result of substantial investments made earlier in the decade 
• the discoveries span 5 continents & dozens of countries
• new discoveries in the first half of 2009 reached ~10 billion barrels; if the pace continues, they are likely to reach the highest level since 2000
• finding and extracting oil is becoming harder - requiring higher prices and improvements in technology to remain viable
• nevertheless, world oil consumption reached 31 billion barrels of oil last year, continuing the trend of new discoveries not keeping pace with consumption, a problem that has been occurring since the early 1980's