NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - With oil prices hovering near record highs and OPEC saying it's out of their control, the question of whether the planet is nearing the end of its oil supply has again arisen.

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Demand for oil has soared over the last year, with prices in tow, as China has emerged as an economic powerhouse and other developing countries have boosted consumption.

In addition, oil use is picking up more steam now as the United States -- the world's biggest energy consumer -- heads into the summer driving season.

The concern is that this rising consumption is outpacing the discovery of new crude reserves.

Worldwide use of crude oil is at an all time high and there's no sign that demand will drop anytime soon. As CNNfn Chris Huntington reports, the big question is: Are we running out of oil? Play video (Real or Windows Media)

At current rates of production, there were 40.6 years of consumption covered by proven reserves in 2002, the latest data available, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper, citing the BP Statistical Review, said that in 1989, there were 44.7 years left of consumption.

"[A shortage] will probably happen in the next 10 to 20 years," Professor David Goodstein, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, told CNNfn.

"And it may have already begun," he added.

Meanwhile, the discovery of huge pools of oil beneath the earth's surface has hit a dry spell.

A field off the Kazakhstan coast was the last major discovery in 30 years, according to the Journal.

And fields in other traditional oil-heavy areas such as Texas, Alaska and the North Sea are in decline.

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Exacerbating matters are worries about threats to political stability in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter, and the rest of the Middle East, as well as reductions in producers' proven reserves.

Earlier this year, Royal Dutch/Shell, one of the world's biggest oil companies, cut the amount of its proven reserves by 22 percent in a scandal that led to the ouster of top executives at the British- and Dutch-owned company.

While oil prices are near record highs in current dollars, adjusted for inflation prices are well off the highs they hit in the 1970s and early '80s.