What will happen to Saudi Arabia when the oil runs out?
Proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia are the largest in the world, estimated to be 267 billion barrels (42×10^9 m3) including 2.5 billion barrels in the Saudi-Kuwaiti neutral zone. This is around one-fifth of the world’s total conventional oil reserves. Although Saudi Arabia has around 100 major oil and gas fields, over half of its oil reserves are contained in only eight giant oil fields, including the Ghawar Field, the biggest oil field in the world with an estimated 70 billion barrels (11×10^9 m3) of remaining reserves. Saudi Arabia maintains the world’s largest crude oil production capacity, estimated to be around 11 million barrels per day (1.7×10^6 m3/d) at mid-year 2008 and has announced plans to increase this capacity to 12.5 million barrels per day (2.0×10^6 m3/d) by 2009. Saudi Arabia produced 10.6 million barrels per day in 2006, and 10.3 million in 1980. At the beginning of 2008, the kingdom was producing around 9.2 million barrels per day (1.46×10^6 m3/d) of oil. After US P
