Who Has to Conserve How Much? – The Oil Drum

In influential posts over at Graphoilogy, Khebab and WesTexas argued that the four largest oil exporters were more than half way through their eventual production, and that since their internal consumption was bound to increase, therefore the amount of oil available for export was certain to plummet. WesTexas has been making increasingly dire warnings about lack of export capacity ever since.

I don’t 100% agree with this way of looking at things, though it’s a piece of the truth. The part I agree with is that net oil exporters are going to have their economies helped by high oil prices, and that might lead to some increase (or at least reduced decrease) in oil uage relative to everyone else. However, I think just assuming that consumption in exporting countries will increase in line with their historical GDP growth or population growth, and only what is left over after internal consumption gets exported, strikes me as probably a bit simplistic.
The Oil Drum