THE OIL AGE ARRIVES35The oil produced from the Dammam Dome, at Jebel Dukhan in
Bahrain, at Burgan in Kuwait, and at the offshore Zakum field in Abu
Dhabi did not stay in those countries. Arab oil flowed out of the ground
and was pumped onto tankers and cooked in refineries in industrial
Europe and Asia. Cheap Middle Eastern oil provided the discount gas-
oline and diesel that fueled the Free World’s mammoth post– World War II
expansion, allowing the spread of an energy- intensive Americanized
lifestyle.
The Gulf monarchies became the fueling station to the world. The
peninsula’s scant population and underdevelopment were now compet-
itive advantages. Its few inhabitants were too poor to consume oil. Even
if their poverty was temporary, oil reserves were so vast relative to the
population that no one could foresee a day when domestic demand might
impinge on exports.
At the time of first oil, most of the energy consumed in the Gulf still
came in preindustrial form: human and animal labor, fueled by food.
For cooking and heat, people burned biomass, mostly in the form of
dung. Transportation was powered by animals or the wind. People rode
beasts or bicycles, sculled boats or walked, or they sailed aboard the
ubiquitous dhow, lateen sails billowing. Wind power also drove water
pumps and provided cooling, via the wind towers, or barjeel, that still
rise above preelectricity buildings in the region.
In those days, oil was of little use on the Arabian Peninsula. People
burned it for illumination and daubed it on the hulls of their boats as
waterproofing. Until the region’s first major refinery was built at the
Saudi export hub of Ras Tanura in 1945,^15 most oil products had to be
imported— hardly a problem, since there was so little demand. Even
when the Ras Tanura refinery opened, less than 5 percent of its output
was consumed inside Saudi Arabia. The rest was exported.^16 The Gulf
countries had few roads, cars, or anything else that ran on petroleum.
There was no electricity, no refrigeration, and no air conditioning right
up into the 1950s in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia and until
the 1960s in the UAE and the 1970s in Oman.
The state of development in the Gulf would change, of course. When
it did, few were prepared for the speed at which it would unfold.