Energy Security Issues in the Middle East a report by Gawdat Bahgat Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Washington DC
The recent economic and political turmoil that has swept several Arab countries, including Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen, among others, has raised concern about the security of energy supplies from the Middle East. The roots of this concern go back to the 1973–4 oil embargo. This article highlights the major threats to energy security and argues that the Middle East will continue to be a major and reliable source of oil and natural gas. The growing interdependence between consumers and producers serves the interests of both sides.
Energy is the lifeblood of civilisation. Both as individuals and nation states we depend heavily on energy. In almost everything we do, we rely on one or other source of energy. Many peoples and governments used to take the availability of energy sources for granted. Our deepening reliance on energy and the rise of a combination of geopolitical, geological and environmental challenges have cast doubt on this assumption that energy will always be there. It is little wonder that energy security has become a major concern to almost all countries worldwide.
The heavy reliance on energy in conjunction with the asymmetric global distribution of energy resources has underscored the importance of energy security. This sense of vulnerability is not new. Despite the abundance of energy resources and a favourable political and economic environment, industrialised countries started expressing their concerns over energy security as early as the first part of the twentieth century. The availability of cheap energy resources played a major role in the reconstruction and development of Europe and Japan in the aftermath of World War II. This prolonged era of relative confidence in the availability of abundant and secure energy resources came to an abrupt end following the outbreak of the 1973 Arab–Israeli War. Arab oil-producing countries cut their production and imposed oil embargos on the US and a few other countries to force a change in their political support for Israel. This use of oil by major producers to gain political leverage has shattered consumers’ sense of energy security. Since then, the fluctuation of energy prices (partly due to geopolitical developments and partly in response to supply and demand changes) has reinforced this sense of vulnerability.
In the last few decades there has been a growing understanding of the challenges that climate change poses to life on earth. More people have come to realise that our way of life (i.e. human activities) contributes to and accelerates global warming and that something needs to be done to restrain this human-made environmental deterioration. This slowly growing consensus has added a new dimension to energy security. The concept is no longer limited to the availability of energy resources at affordable prices. Environmental considerations restrain the exploration and development of these resources and urge consideration of less polluting alternative sources of energy. Figure 1 illustrates the recent and projected pollution.
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Not enough attention is given to the other side of the energy equation – producing nations. The concept of energy security is not static. Since the mid-1970s a broader definition has emerged that addresses all the energy players’ concerns. In the past few decades, while the industrialised countries have successfully diversified their sources of crude oil imports and greatly reduced their relative dependence on energy (albeit at different degrees), the major oil exporters remained dependent on oil revenues. Petroleum revenues have continued to be the principal source of income of almost all major oil-exporting countries. As a result, oil exporters have as many reasons to worry about the security of their markets as importers have to worry about the security of supplies. In short, the security of demand is considered as important as the security of supply. It is a two-way street.
To sum up, energy security is a multidimensional concept that incorporates co-operation between producers, consumers and national and international companies. The experience of the last few decades indicates that the availability of clean energy resources at affordable prices cannot be addressed only at a national level. Rather, international co-operation is a necessity. Thus energy is a part of broader international relations. A major theme of today’s energy markets is interdependence between consumers and producers. Calls for self-sufficiency or energy independence are more for domestic constituencies. Indeed, energy interdependence fosters co-operation between countries in other areas such as economic development and world peace.
Energy Security – A Middle East Perspective Several Middle Eastern countries enjoy multiple advantages as the world’s major oil and natural gas producers. Firstly, the Middle East holds the world’s largest proven oil and natural gas reserves. The high level of production and low (though growing) level of consumption mean that a substantial proportion of the oil produced is exported
Gawdat Bahgat joined the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) faculty in December 2009. Before joining NESA, he was director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. For 20 years, Dr Bahgat has taught political science and international relations in several universities. His areas of expertise include energy security, counter-terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, international political economy, the
Middle East, Caspian Sea/Central Asia and American foreign policy. Dr Bahgat is the author of six books and about 200 scholarly articles. His work has been translated into several foreign languages. He has presented papers at conferences in Australia, Europe and the Middle East, and is a frequent contributor to media outlets including Voice of America and the Wall Street Journal. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Florida State University, an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University in Cairo and a BA in Political Science from Cairo University.
E:
gawdat.bahgat@
ndu.edu
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Regional Focus - Middle East
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