To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [Homestead] Oil from the Saudi Arabian view
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 09:41:38 -0700
Top Saudi Says Kingdom Has Plenty of Oil
By ANNE GEARAN
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 9, 2005; 11:32 AM
WASHINGTON -- Saudi Arabia has plenty of oil _ more than the world is
likely to need _ along with an increasing ability to refine crude oil into
gasoline and other products before selling it overseas, a top Saudi
official says.
"The world is more likely to run out of uses for oil than Saudi Arabia is
going to run out of oil," Adel al-Jubeir, top foreign policy adviser for
Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah, said Wednesday.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, Al-Jubeir said
relations between his nation and the Bush administration were strong but
"the environment in which the relationship operates ... still leaves a lot
to be desired."
He denied his country has any nuclear weapons ambitions, despite
international concerns about a Saudi request to lower international
scrutiny of its lone nuclear reactor.
He said he was "bullish" about the Saudi economy, which although based on
the country's vast oil reserves has also diversified to include a galloping
stock market.
Al-Jubeir dismissed speculation, including in a recent book, that the
country was hiding the true picture of its oil reserves and that it may
have far less than publicly assumed. He said Saudi Arabia has proven
reserves of 261 billion barrels, and with the arrival of newer technology
could extract an additional 100 billion to 200 billion barrels.
"We will be producing oil for a very long time," al-Jubeir said.
Saudi Arabia now pumps 9.5 million barrels of oil daily, with the capacity
to produce 11 million barrels a day. The country has pledged to increase
daily production to 12.5 million barrels by 2009, and the nation's oil
minister said last month the level of 12.5 million to 15 million barrels
daily could be sustained for up to 50 years.
High oil prices benefit the Saudi economy in the short run, but al-Jubeir
said his nation wants a stable price that won't hurt consumers so much that
they reduce their energy demands.
The problem for both the Saudis and the United States is what happens after
the oil is pumped.
"If we send more oil to the United States and you can't refine it, it's not
going to become gasoline," al-Jubeir said. The United States has not built
a refinery since the 1970s, and other markets have similarly outmoded or
limited refining capacity. Environmental concerns and local opposition make
it unlikely new U.S. refineries can be built quickly, even with the current
gas price crunch.
Saudi Arabia has partly stepped into the breach, with new refineries being
built inside the kingdom as well as in China and soon in India, al-Jubeir said.
The country has also invested in gasoline stations, part of a strategy of
"going downstream" from oil production to distribution, al-Jubeir said.
"We continue to do it, and we have one of the largest refining and
distribution systems in the world," he said.
Ordinary Saudis remain deeply distrustful of the United States in the
aftermath of the Iraq invasion and revelations about mistreatment of Muslim
prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and a range of complaints about
conditions at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, al-Jubeir said.
"Why do they hate you? They don't hate you, they just don't like your
policies."
Al-Jubeir said the Saudi regime takes no umbrage at U.S. efforts to spread
democracy in the Middle East. President Bush and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice have made democratic expansion a centerpiece of Bush's
second term foreign policy.
"We believe that the idea of spreading freedom and democracy is a noble
one," but change must come on terms each country can accept, al-Jubeir said.