Regional issues will be less important for oil supply developments than for coal (see Chapter 2 above) and natural gas (see Chapter 4 below). Although world coal resources are widely dispersed, both production and use are heavily concentrated in a small number of countries, so that prospective supply-demand relationships in the 21st century vary geographically to a marked degree. The higher costs of transporting natural gas will, likewise, continue to undermine its marketability in countries remote from producing regions.

This situation is quite different with respect to oil. Proven reserves are presently highly concentrated in the Middle East, with 65% of the global total. In the absence of major surprises on the location of the world s remaining undiscovered reserves of conventional oil, it is likely that the Middle East s share of the world s ultimately recoverable conventional oil will remain above 50%. The other 50% both proven and still to be discovered appear likely to be found around the rest of the world in a reasonably equitable manner, except for east and southeast Asia which is poorer than elsewhere. The future exploitation of such reserves, on anything like the scale of the upstream oil industry in the Middle East, is unlikely to emerge even in the very long-term.

Meanwhile, as shown in Table 3.4, there is but a modest correlation between the rank-ordering of producing and consuming countries. Only the US, Russia, China and Canada are rank-ordered in the top-ten countries for both...