The coming world oil order

Following on from Daniel’s post this morning about a more inward looking America, Daniel Yergin has a very interesting essay in the Washington Post about how the changing balance of the US’s energy supplies are going to change its geo-strategic priorities. Yergin makes the point that by 2020, Canada could be a bigger oil producer than Iran and Brazil could be producing more than half of what Saudi Arabia is currently pumping out.

Put these developments together with increased domestic energy production in the States itself and the fact that China is on its way to overtaking the US as the world’s largest oil consumer, and the geo-politics of energy begins to look very different. As Yergin points out, if this scenario comes to pass, Beijing will have more of an interest in the security situation in the Persian Gulf than Washington.