Jim_Krane]_Energy_Kingdoms__Oil_and_Political_Sur

68UNNATURALLY COOL

in demand means that nearly a quarter of GCC oil production is now
diverted to domestic use. At the time of the 1973 oil spike, that figure
was around 4 percent. The German economist Eckart Woertz describes
it succinctly: “The region is not only the world’s petrol station; it has
also become its own best customer.”^4 Despite the implications of
regional demand displacing exports from the world’s foremost energy
supply region, this growth in consumption went unnoticed until
2008, when the International Energy Agency released a special report
declaring the need to come to grips with this “under- anticipated”
trend.^5
Growth may have slipped under the radar because Middle Eastern
hydrocarbon reserves are big enough to produce for many more decades.
Saudi Arabia’s oil-reserves-to- production ratio (the length of time proven
reserves can produce at current rates) stood at 59 years in 2017. The UAE
had 66 years remaining; Kuwait had 88. Qatari oil reserves were at a
modest 36 years, but Qatar has enough gas to produce at 2017 levels for
134 years.^6 Underground reserves, as we will see, are of little help to a
government giving away its production.
The stakes are highest in Saudi Arabia, which consumed 3.9m b/d in
2017, a third of all the oil and natural gas liquids it produced that year.

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

199519961997199819992000200120022003200420052006200720082009201020112012201320142015

Saudi Arabia

BahrainUAE

OmanQatar

Kuwait

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

FIGURE  5.1 Domestic oil consumption as a percentage of domestic oil production,
1995– 2016. Includes natural gas liquids, or NGLs.

Source: BP, Statistical Review of World Energy 2017 (London: BP, 2017);

IEA Oil Information database, International Energy Agency, Paris, 2018.