Big Oil's "Peak Oil"

In a time when many people are worried that we're using too much oil, it seems that big oil companies are worried we're not using enough.

This goes to illustrate the totally divergent world views that are at play here, and also how those two views could easily become strange bedfellows. While some worry about oil production peaking, Big Oil is getting sweaty over a possible peak and decline in demand. So depending on how you're parsing all this, we're either going to need more than we have, or have more than we need. But either 'peak' would essentially end in the same situation, that of reduced oil usage in the US.

While it would seem to be an obvious plus if we were less dependent on oil no matter the reason, a hesitance on the part of the oil companies concerning future profitability could cause them to pull back on exploration/production/refinement in ways that themselves could be detrimental to availability and supply reliability in the meantime (which is what Peak Oil believers worry about).

And as examples of oil companies shedding alternative energy ventures continue to pile up (BP made a similar move recently), I'm trying to figure out exactly where they think their long term future profits are going to come from? One would think that now would be an excellent time for the oil companies to push forward and put their tremendous resources behind developing a new direction that almost everyone agrees will need to be a huge part of our energy future, so as to stand the best chance of profiting from it.