Sleepy sultanate prepares for rude awakening after oil

The sultan with the largest palace in the world – 1788 rooms – has flagged the beginning of the end of the good times, recently asking his loyal subjects to tighten their belts a notch.

Then he gave civil servants a pay rise and sat down to dinner with 4000 of his closest friends to celebrate his 60th birthday.

Welcome to Brunei, which gets tagged as “sleepy and oil-rich”, in the same way Aceh gets tagged “troubled and resource-rich”.
Brunei’s 370,000 citizens live a tax-free existence, with free health and education and heavily subsidised petrol prices – 51 Brunei cents a litre (42 cents). The country has more cars than people, even though 80 per cent is still covered by forest.

But sleepy Brunei may soon have to wake up. The size of its oil and gas reserves is a state secret, but it is estimated they may last only another 20 years.

Sidney Morning Herald