Study: Saudi oil exports may start falling in 2014

Saudi Arabia's oil exports may start to fall in 2014 after it reaches maximum production capacity of 12.5 million barrels a day and domestic consumption grows, Chatham House said in a report.

"Once production levels off at a plateau, exports will decline" as local demand rises, the London-based think tank said in report titled "Ending Dependence: Hard Choices for Oil- Exporting States." Current Saudi output capacity is 11.3 million barrels a day, Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said June 30.

While production may hold steady for decades, the kingdom's exports may fall as more oil is diverted to the local market. The Saudi economy absorbed 20 percent of the country's oil output in 2006, Chatham House said, citing data from BP Plc's Statistical Review and national statistics. The report didn't estimate a figure for future demand. Local consumption rose 7 percent last year to 2.15 million barrels a day, BP data show.

To ensure the Saudi economy keeps growing, other sources of income will be needed to replace oil revenue, which may plateau by the middle of the next decade, according to the report's authors John Mitchell from the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies and Dundee University Emeritus Professor Paul Stevens. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Nigeria will stop exporting oil by 2040, the researchers said.

Oil output from Iran, Kuwait and Nigeria, whose production capacity represents more than a quarter of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' total, will level off as soon as 2010, the report said. Oil exports may last longer if producing nations scrap domestic fuel subsidies to reduce energy use or adopt renewable energy.

With oil at $100 a barrel, which the authors take as a floor price, Saudi Arabia's hydrocarbons revenue will fail to cover its fiscal deficit from 2030 onwards, they said. Iran's oil income will cover its expenses until 2025, and Kuwait's until 2040, according to the report.

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