Power Window

This article analyzes the energy identity crisis in some oil-producing countries. It highlights that the retail price for gasoline in countries such as Libya, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Yemen was at or below the cost on the world market of the petroleum needed to produce it. However, Egypt went from an exporter of more than 300,000 barrels of oil a day in 1999 to a net importer beginning in 2009. And as a consequence, the prices for gasoline in Egypt went from below the raw material cost in 2006 to being comparable to those in the United States. Tunisia shifted from an exporter to an importer in 2000. Thanks to strong consumption growth, Bahrain has also seen its exports plummet from more than 30,000 barrels a day in the 1990s to around 3500 today. The Saudi consumption curve is climbing at about 4% per year, and unless the country can raise production above 11 million barrels a day, its exports will disappear by 2050.