Regardless of scale, in a world with increasingly tight supplies this seems like a huge problem. The graph above is pretty chilling if you ask me.

I wonder, do you have a similar graph for Saudi Arabia currently? It might give us an idea if it is following a similar trend to Indonesia.




I don't have Saudi to hand, but UAE is a good proxy. The danger with UAE is not rising consumption but falling production in the next 2 decades. Exports only begin exponential decline when the ratio of exports : production becomes small.

Thanks for this! I would expect UAE to be a lot closer to Saudi in any case.

See my post down the thread. Saudi Arabia will almost certainly show an accelerating net export decline rate from 2006 to 2007 versus 2005 to 2006; the only question is what the number is. We will have to see what happens in 2008.