The Breaking Point

As world oil prices continue to surge past $US60 per barrel, and as Chinese companies aggressively pursue acquisition of energy assets, anxiety is growing in many quarters about global energy security. Focusing his inquiry on the world's largest exporter, Saudi Arabia, Peter Maass uncovers some unsettling realities about the global oil supply. Maass reports on the difficulties in ascertaining the extent of Saudi oil reserves. He writes, "Oil reservoirs cannot be inventoried like wood in a wilderness: The oil is underground, unseen by geologists and engineers." Meanwhile, Saudi officials remain mum about specific production and reserve data, delivering instead vague reassurances about their oil reserves. Regardless of the exact numbers, there are inherent limits to production of this fossil fuel. Due to the complexity of oil geology, the supply of any given well or field may drop off – completely, suddenly, and undpredictably. "The economic blow may come as a sledgehammer from the darkness," Maass warns. US estimates for future demand far exceed Saudi capacity – and still, substantive discussions about a potential energy crisis are conspicuously absent from American political discourse. And it is this aspect that Maass finds most troubling. "When a crisis comes – whether in a year or 2 or 10," he concludes, "it will be all the more painful because we will have done little or nothing to prepare for it." – YaleGlobal