Saudi Arabia warns that the world is running out of energy capacity: 

'I have never seen these things'

Phil Rosen
Tue, May 10, 2022,

The EU is planning a complete ban on Russian oil imports.

Saudi Oil Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman warned Tuesday that the world is "running out of energy capacity at all levels."

"I am a dinosaur, but I have never seen these things," he said at a conference.

A UAE official also warned that more investment is needed in the energy sector for OPEC+ to deliver sufficient supplies.

The amount of unused capacity that the world can tap to produce more energy products is running out, warned top oil ministers.

Referring to recent price spikes for refined products, Saudi Oil Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said at a Tuesday conference, "I am a dinosaur, but I have never seen these things," according to Bloomberg.

"The world needs to wake up to an existing reality. The world is running out of energy capacity at all levels," he added.

Prices for crude oil have surged more than 50% from a year ago to roughly $105 a barrel. But prices for refined products like diesel have soared even higher. In the US, diesel prices are up 78% to $5.50 a gallon, Bloomberg data shows.

The United Arab Emirates' oil minister said OPEC+ may not be able to deliver on sufficient energy supplies down the line without more investments.

"We've been warning about the lack of investment," Suhail al Mazrouei said in an interview in Abu Dhabi, Bloomberg reported. "That lack of investment is catching up with a lot of countries."

Mazrouei added that "politicization" of the oil market has pushed supply prices higher.

Meanwhile, the European Union is weighing a full embargo on Russian oil in an attempt to ramp up economic pressure on Moscow for its war on Ukraine. In the event of the oil ban, one analyst predicted Russia would have to slash its oil production within "a year or two."

Saudis, UAE: The World Has A Serious Energy Spare Capacity Problem

Editor OilPrice.com
Tue, May 10, 2022, 

Persistently low investment in conventional energy sources risks leaving the world running out of spare production capacity for crude oil, refined products, and natural gas, the energy ministers of two of OPEC’s top producers, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said on Tuesday.

Officials from the oil and gas producing countries in the Middle East have been warning for months—even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine—that recent low investments in new fields and production capacity would lead to dwindling energy capacity production once the global economy recovers from the COVID slump of 2020.

At a conference in Abu Dhabi today, the Saudi Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, said that “The world needs to wake up to an existing reality.”

“The world is running out of energy capacity at all levels,” Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said, as carried by Bloomberg.

Not enough investment in global refining capacity is one of the key drivers of the global rally in gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel prices, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Monday, reiterating the Kingdom’s view that a rushed transition to cleaner energy fails to take into account realities.

If the industry is discouraged from investments, this will lead to a lack of supply, which will translate into inflation, and that will affect the end consumer, the minister said at the Future Aviation Forum in Riyadh.

At the Tuesday conference in Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said that OPEC+ may not be able to guarantee enough supply when the world fully recovers from the COVID crash in demand.

The UAE minister also said that the extreme volatility in the oil market in recent weeks is the result of some buyers boycotting certain crudes; it is not connected with OPEC+ and is outside the alliance’s control, in an apparent reference to the boycott of Russian oil from Western buyers.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia are actually the only two oil producers believed to have sufficient spare oil production capacity, but they are unwilling to tap it, saying the market is balanced and any extreme volatility is the result of geopolitical factors.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com