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quinta-feira, novembro 03, 2005

We may end up with much less oil from the Middle East than we demand

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The International Energy Agency, the oil sector monitoring body, on Wednesday said that oil prices by 2030 would be 50 per cent higher than today if Saudi Arabia did not muster the political will to invest billions of dollars in new production.

Fatih Birol, the group's chief economist, said in an interview with the Financial Times that Saudi Arabia, the most important oil producer, might not make the investment needed to ensure production met the strong demand growth in China and India.

“It is not a problem of availability of reserves or capital. We need to be sure that the increase in production will be high enough and a sustained production capacity increase policy is in place. That will need sustained political will,” he said. Saudi Arabia has plans to invest $14bn to raise output capacity from 11m barrels a day to 12.5m b/d by 2009, according to a report by Samba Financial Group, a Riyadh-based bank.

The IEA said Saudi Arabia would need almost to double current output of 10m b/d to meet the expectations of demand in 2030. But Mr Birol said the kingdom might muster the long-term political will only to produce just over half the extra barrels deemed necessary.

Iran and Iraq are also vital to ensuring adequate oil and natural gas supplies in the next 25 years. But both face political hurdles to achieving the necessary investment. Many Middle East countries fear that investing heavily in new oil supplies will deplete fields too quickly and cut revenues by depressing oil prices.

Mr Birol said: “We may end up with much less oil from the Middle East than we demand. There is substantial risk of substantially high oil prices if current investment in the Middle East is not stepped up substantially. “Such high oil prices would be an additional trigger for major consuming nations to introduce policies to save oil and look for alternative sources. If they don't, the global economy but mainly the economies of the consuming nations will suffer.”
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FT.com / International economy / Oil for food - IEA warns of 50% oil price rise by 2030

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