Saudi Arabia - Headed for a Downfall?Saudi Arabia recently announced that it had halted a $100 billion oil production expansion plan to raise capacity to 15 million barrels a day by 2020. At this point, the country claims to have capacity of 12 million barrels a day. What does this mean for its future? Let’s take a look behind the figures.
The figure shows that Saudi Arabia has not been increasing its production for many years. At the same time, the country’s oil consumption has been rising rapidly. The combination means that oil exports have already started declining.
But the question becomes: What will happen to oil production between now and 2020? Production from most wells declines with age. Wells that have been producing for a long time, including Ghawar, will at some point start producing less. (In fact, we don’t know if Ghawar is already producing less, and the new production that has been brought on line is covering up the decline.) It seems as though we should start seeing a decline in production in the next few years, if no more production than this is brought on line.
Given these considerations, there would seem to be a fairly high probability that Saudi oil exports will decline more rapidly in the next few years. If this happens, Saudi Arabia will encounter financial problems unless the price of the oil rises very substantially, because of the need to fund its social programs.
Deutche Bank analyst Paul Sankey estimates that Saudi Arabia now needs $92 a barrel to break even fiscally because of greater social spending, up from $60 barrel in 2008. If exports decline in future years as production falls and consumption rises, further escalation in the break-even price can be expected. Once new programs are put in place, it is difficult for a government to remove them.
News releases from Saudi Arabia emphasize the supposedly rosy world oil situation: Saudi production can still rise to 12 million barrels a day, and there will be plenty of oil from other sources, such as Iraq or a shale oil revolution. Furthermore, the world economy may need less, because of recession.
All of these statements are far from proven. They appear to be crafted to make Peak Oil look like it is not a problem, and to keep people from asking, “Why would a country whose entire economy revolves around oil, and that supposedly has the world’s largest oil reserves, announce that it is cutting back its plans for expansion? How can it possibly maintain its programs, if it doesn’t keep expanding?”
https://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2011/12/saudi-arabia-headed-for-a-downfall/