by pup55 » Wed 20 Apr 2005, 21:09:24
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'w')ill these middle east producers domestic consumption continue to increase when the world price skyrockets
This is an interesting question.
There is a nice presentation by simmons to the effect that some of this internal consumption will be due to population increases, and I guess in Iran this is probably the case, since the rate of increase in energy use is pretty close to population growth.
In the case of Saudi, on the other hand, internal oil usage is growing a lot faster than the population, which makes me think that they need to use it as part of their production process, i.e. pumping all of that water, or some other industrialization effort. Perhaps desalination plants or something.
In either case, I would imagine that even if the price skyrockets, it is likely that per-capita oil usage in these nations will be kept constant, so as to keep the masses happy. This being the case, we can probably expect growth rates comparable to population growth no matter how expensive the stuff gets. Over and above this base rate, probably some of the excess consumption will be wrung out of the system somehow.