As a result of their exports of crude oil and petroleum products in 2008, the member states of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have achieved financial revenues estimated at one trillion dollars. More specifically, this revenue amounted to precisely 1,007 trillion dollars, the highest for OPEC since its inception in Baghdad in 1960, or 49 years ago, and nearly 35 percent more than the revenues of 2007 (which amounted to about 746 million dollars). Furthermore, this rise in revenues for 2008 is mainly due in part to the increase of production rates reaching an average of 33 million barrels per day, out of which 24.2 million were exported per day. Of course, the main reason for 2008's high oil revenues was the record prices that year, reaching 147 dollars per barrel in July 2008, according to OPEC's Annual Statistical Bulletin of 2009 (ASB 2009). Although it's still premature to predict the oil revenues for 2009, they are expected to be below the revenue levels of the last two years. This is owing to production cuts on one hand, and price deterioration on the other hand, which started this year (bottoming at 32 dollars per barrel) as a result of the global financial crisis. The fact of the matter is that the significance of this information and these indicators lie in the dynamic link between the oil trade and the strength of the world economy (because of the globalization of oil), and in the magnitude of the challenges facing this industry, vital to the Arab States. Meanwhile, OPEC recently published an important report entitled World Oil Outlook 2009, which explains, in thorough analysis and figures, the challenges facing the international oil industry in both the short and long terms. In this regard, the report mentions several of these challenges, including the problem of failing to secure adequate demand levels for oil, and the sharp fluctuations that beleaguered those demand levels. Consequently, there is an absence of “oil demand security”, at least in the near or intermediate terms, and until the oil-producing countries invest hundreds of billions of dollars in production capacity, new plants and major refineries. When drafting this report, the General Secretariat of the Organization must have taken into account the concerns about the current global financial crisis, as well as the economic crisis, whose end is difficult to predict: will the global economy be able to regain its former vigour, and when, and how? This is while noting that the report has indicated that there is a large possibility for energy consumption to increase over the long term, especially in emerging countries led by Asian countries such as India and China, all thanks to their rapid economic growth and high increase in their populations. As such, global energy consumption is expected to rise by nearly 42 percent by the year 2030. However, the report forecasts that at the same time, oil consumption in Western industrial countries will shrink in both the near and intermediate terms from about 47.5 million barrels per day in 2008, to about 45.5 million barrels per day in 2010, and for the level of consumption to stabilize at this rate up until 2013. It should be mentioned here that this reduction is due to the global economic crisis. In addition, the report confirms that the transportation sector will continue to be at the top of oil consuming sectors worldwide, accounting for about 60 percent of the increase in oil consumption until 2030, despite the technical modifications being introduced to new cars, such as developing hybrid or electric cars. In fact, the number of vehicles is expected to increase from 800 million cars in 2007 to 1.3 billion cars by 2030, with three quarters of this increase expected to take place in emerging economies. Also, and in addition to the critical role of the automobile sector, it is also expected that the consumption of other oil derivatives will increase such as in petrochemical industries and in the iron, steel and paper industries. In the same vein, the increase in number of these factories in Asian countries, not to mention in the OPEC countries themselves, will provide a vast market for petroleum products. Meanwhile, with regard to securing supplies, OPEC's experts predict the oil production of non-OPEC member states to increase by about a million barrels per day in the near term (2008 - 2013). Nonetheless, the reason why this increase will not be more than these levels is the reduced investments during the global economic crisis, and the difficulty in obtaining financing and credit from banks worldwide. In any case, production is expected to increase in Russia and the countries surrounding the Caspian Sea and Brazil, with non-conventional oil expected to constitute a large proportion in these new supplies. Finally, OPEC experts have expected pressures to increase on OPEC members to boost their investments in crude oil production, refining and transportation, with the estimated total investment value to rise to about 2.3 trillion dollars by 2030. * Mr. Khadduri is an expert on energy
