Profit from the scramble for alternative oil sources

With the end of the era of cheap oil, energy companies are now exploiting more challenging and expensive sources. And that leads to opportunities for investors, say James McKeigue and John Stepek.

Amid the turmoil in the Middle East, only one thing has been able to keep any sort of lid on the oil price: the promise that Saudi Arabia can step in to fill any gap in production left by a revolution in Libya, or elsewhere. Saudi is seen as the 'central banker' of oil, as Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency (IEA) puts it. Of course, investors are frightened of what could happen if Saudi Arabia faces similar turmoil (which isn't out of the question, see below).

But there's a more worrying possibility. What if Saudi Arabia simply doesn't have the capacity to produce as much oil as it says it does? "It is possible that Saudi reserves are not as bountiful as sometimes described," reads a secret report from the US embassy in Saudi Arabia, published by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. The embassy spent 2008 and 2009 investigating claims that the country with the world's largest oil reserves would struggle to meet future demand. It notes that "the timeline for their production [is] not as unrestrained as Aramco [the state oil firm] and energy optimists would like to portray... Saudi Aramco is having to run harder to stay in place, to replace the decline in existing production."

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James McKeigue

James graduated from Keele University with a BA (Hons) in English literature and history, and has a certificate in journalism from the NCTJ. James has worked as a freelance journalist in various Latin American countries.He also had a spell at ITV, as welll as wring for Television Business International and covering the European equity markets for the Forbes.com London bureau. James has travelled extensively in emerging markets, reporting for international energy magazines such as Oil and Gas Investor, and institutional publications such as the Commonwealth Business Environment Report. He is currently the managing editor of LatAm INVESTOR, the UK's only Latin American finance magazine.