What is the impact of oil in the Middle East?
The major oil producers of the Middle East include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Algeria. Egypt, Syria, Oman and Yemen have smaller reserves. Most of the major oil producers of the Middle East are part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC. (NonMiddle Eastern OPEC members include Indonesia, Venezuela, Nigeria and other countries.) Much of the world’s oil wealth exists along the Persian Gulf, with particularly large reserves in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE. About onequarter of U.S. oil imports come from the Persian Gulf region; the Gulf supplies European states and Japan with an even higher percentage of those countries’ energy needs. The imposition of higher fuel efficiency standards and other conservation measures, along with the increased use of renewable energy resources for which technologies are already available, could eliminate U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil in a relatively short period of tim
