Читать онлайн "After the Sheikhs : The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies" - Davidson Christopher Michael - RuLit

In the weakest position has been Bahrain, where as early as 1965 half of its onshore oil reserves were already thought to have been depleted and in 1987 production from its offshore Abu Safah field (shared with Saudi Arabia) began to slow. Since then Bahrain has had to rely heavily on about 147,000 barrels per day (about 77 per cent of its total output) from Saudi Arabia,[464] as compensation for this loss. In 1993 Bahrain’s remaining reserves were estimated at just 200 million barrels with total depletion expected in 2005.[465] Although this may have taken place, it has been somewhat disguised by Bahrain’s oil-refining capacity, which now primarily refines Saudi oil. As with many other Gulf monarchies, Bahrain is now a prominent gas producer, but again it is estimated that an increasing proportion of its output will be required by the domestic sector.

Similarly Oman is believed to have shrinking oil output,[466] with recent discoveries having either proved commercially unviable or on a much smaller scale than in the past.[467] In total it is thought to have only 5.5 billion barrels of oil in known reserves — most of which are spread out over disparate fields. This means Oman will soon become a net hydrocarbon importer[468] as its domestic energy consumption has more than doubled over the past decade.[469] While Abu Dhabi still has a few decades of oil reserves remaining — with an estimated 98 billion barrels of oil left,[470] its gas production is hampered by high sulphur rates and is increasingly being earmarked for the domestic sector. Abu Dhabi is already importing Qatari gas via the Dolphin pipeline — a joint project with Qatar and Royal Dutch Shell originally conceived in 1999. But most problematic for Abu Dhabi is the increasing amount of energy it has to supply to the six other UAE emirates as their demands also increase. Although the poorest four emirates have never had significant hydrocarbon reserves, both Dubai and Sharjah were once oil and gas producers. Sharjah’s production is now minimal, and in 1995 Dubai’s daily oil output slowed to just 300,000 barrels.[471] Although the ruler of Dubai made an announcement in early 2010 that a new offshore oilfield had been discovered,[472] this seemed to be primarily a political move as the emirate was trying to restore investor confidence following the difficulties it faced in late 2009. Indeed, analysts quickly expressed doubts over the commercial viability of the field and described the find as ‘a drop in [Dubai’s] ocean of debt’.[473]

Kuwait is in a much stronger position, with official estimates of 100 billion barrels of oil remaining, most of which will come from the massive Burgan field — the second largest in the world. However, some analysts and Kuwaiti members of parliament have disputed this figure, claiming Kuwait has only about 48 billion barrels remaining, while several of its other onshore fields are now nearly seventy years old and maintaining existing levels of production will become increasingly difficult. Since 2008 Kuwait’s consumption of gas has exceeded its production, requiring the emirate to import. This shortfall is likely to increase over the next few years, as domestic electricity demand is believed to be increasing by 8 per cent per year, having eliminated what was once a comfortable reserve margin.[474] In the best position of all is Qatar, which has a much smaller population and massive gas reserves which will likely allow it to keep exporting substantial quantities of gas for several more decades. As officials have claimed, Qatar could even ‘…meet all of the UK’s gas needs for 250 years’.[475] Nonetheless the emirate will soon face pressures with regard to oil consumption, as it only has about 25 billion barrels of oil reserves — making it the second smallest OPEC oil producer. Since 2000 its domestic consumption of oil has tripled and is likely to rise by 5 per cent per year over the next decade due to its rapidly growing economy and in particular growing demand from its transport sector.[476]

In tandem with these declining reserves, and already placing pressure on the wealth distribution systems are the Gulf monarchies’ rapidly increasing indigenous populations. Although often overlooked, given the large size of their urban expatriate communities, the number of nationals in these states has also risen substantially in recent years. This is due to indigenous communities not only living longer, due to vastly improved healthcare, but also because of some of the highest fertility rates in the world, mostly due to the various economic benefits still on offer. Saudi Arabia has always had the highest ratio of nationals to expatriates in its total population, with the former accounting for about 70 per cent of the total, or 19 million persons, according to the 2010 census.[477] Significantly, 47 per cent of Saudi nationals are now thought to be under the age of eighteen, with 80 per cent under the age of thirty, thus making the Saudi population one of the youngest in the world.[478] An exact fertility rate is hard to measure for Saudi nationals — and for all Gulf nationals — due to most statistics being based on total resident populations (and thus being artificially lowered by the inclusion of the much lower expatriate fertility rates).[479] Nonetheless it is likely that it is still much higher than in developed states, while life expectancies have become comparable with those in developed states. Similarly, the national populations of the other five Gulf monarchies also have very high growth rates, with modest or high fertility rates and greatly increased life expectancies. Although a recent UN report discussing the UAE claimed that the country’s birth rate has halved over the past thirty years and is now the lowest in the region, it erred by combining the national and expatriate populations. With the UAE having the highest ratio of expatriates to nationals in the region, this has obscured the fast growth of the indigenous population, which is likely growing just as fast as those of the other Gulf monarchies.[480]

Symptomatic of the strain engendered by these declining reserves, increased domestic energy consumption, and rising populations have been the frequent failures of governments to maintain cheap utilities and keep delivering low cost fuel and foodstuffs. These have historically been three of the most basic types of subsidies in the Gulf monarchies and continue to be regarded as an indispensable birthright by most nationals, especially the younger generations who have no living memory of the pre-oil era and the region’s earlier poverty. They largely expect indefinite subsidies and, unlike their grandparents, rarely view them as gifts from rulers that have led to their lives being transformed. For expatriates, there are fewer political implications, yet it is undeniable that the Gulf monarchies must remain comparatively attractive and competitive places in which to live and work. With regards Saudi Arabia, a recent Brookings Center report argued that the ‘burgeoning youth population’ is now ‘straining the capacity of the Saudi welfare state… characteristics of other societies that have experienced political upheaval’.[481] And in early 2011 a more specific BBC report claimed that Saudi Arabia was grappling with food price inflation of over 9 per cent, with some items such as beef, chicken, and vegetables having doubled in price over just a few years, presumably as a result of increased production and transport costs.[482] In Kuwait, the most obvious problem has been the increasing frequency of rolling electricity blackouts during periods of peak demand, especially during the summer. This led the Energy Information Administration to conclude in 2011 that Kuwait is now in a ‘perpetual state of electricity supply shortage’.[483]