by marco
Tue Feb 13th, 2007 at 08:14:09 AM EST
An article in New York Times makes very clear how despite Iran's immense oil and gas reserves, its native supplies will most likely not be enough to keep its economy afloat and its people "content".
Pressure Increases on Iran's Fragile Energy Industry
"The domestic energy situation is as big as the international issue, and feeds into it in a very significant way," he [Robert Murphy, an analyst at PFC Energy, a consulting firm in Washington] said. <...>
To curb runaway demand that has been driven in part by subsidies that keep the price at the pump a mere 35 cents a gallon, the government plans to begin rationing gasoline in March, a measure so unpopular, and potentially explosive, that ration plans have been put off several times in the past. <...>
At home, meanwhile, Iran has had to appease a population historically prone to unrest. So it spends about $20 billion each year, or 15 percent of its economic output, to keep consumer prices low for gasoline, natural gas, electricity and other energy products, according to the International Monetary Fund and other estimates. Those subsidies -- one of the lowest in the world -- have prompted double-digit growth in consumption in this country of 70 million people. <...>
Iran's refining capacity lags far behind its domestic needs, so the country is forced to import 40 percent of its gasoline. <...>
Iran's leadership says it wants to develop nuclear power generation to free up its petroleum resources for domestic use or for exports.
I have two questions, which no doubt can be very simply answered.
From he diaries -- whataboutbob
There is a single graphic on the page:
How is it that oil production increases steeply from 2002 to 2005 (after crooked yet overall growth since 1981) but is projected to start declining suddenly from 2005 to 2020?
Has production in 2006 borne out this projection?
