Chapter 13 Summary and Analysis

Oil in Saudi Arabia will not last forever. In fact, most signs indicate that the era of cheap and easy oil development in Saudi Arabia is coming to an end. Almost all of Saudi Arabia's oil output comes from a handful of giant and super-giant reserves. These heavy producers have been operating for 40-60 years. Only Shaybah is a relative newcomer. These fields have been producing at very high rates for an extended period of time and no new fields have been found to replace them. These facts paint a gloomy picture of the future of oil in Saudi Arabia. In order to be optimistic in the face of these harsh facts, one must hold one or several of the following assumptions. The secrecy surrounding oil production rates in Saudi Arabia has not been an attempt to conceal the truth about...