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 really matters is day-to-day output - but even there, the statistics are often false, not least because OPEC countries consistently cheat in order to produce more than their official quotas.
But again, what we do know for sure is that Saudi Arabia has a dominant role as the marginal supplier at times of peak oil demand. The mistake, however, is to assume that Saudi dominance will endure – unless the Saudis themselves are prepared to invest heavily to make sure that it does.
The latest figure for Saudi oil production for export is 8.8 million barrels per day. Perhaps surprisingly, that's only slightly more than is produced by the old and depleted US oil fields, and barely more than the Saudis themselves were producing five years ago.
The fact is that they have been very slow in increasing their production capacity, in spite of repeated promises.
For many years, the maximum the Saudis could produce has been estimated at 10.5-11 million barrels per day. To increase that capacity to 18 million barrels per day - the
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| The Saudis won’t let any foreign companies invest in additonal capacity |
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level the US would like to see, to ensure future price stability below today’s barrel price of $61 - is entirely feasible. In the huge and easily exploitable Saudi oil fields, the cost of installing one barrel per day of additional production capacity is only US$6,000 or less.
The whole job could be completed within five years for around US$108 billion. The increase would be more than enough to absorb current Chinese demand of 6.5 million barrels per day. It would absorb projected growth in world demand from the present 84 million barrels to a projected peak of 90 million in 2010.
Unfortunately, there is no chance that Saudi Arabia will add the capacity needed to make that happen.
The first reason for this is financial. $108 billion is not a daunting sum in relation to the Saudis’ 2005 budget surplus of $26 billion, but there are many other calls on their cash. The country’s per capita income is less than a third of what it was in 1980, but its 22 million citizens are increasingly demanding.
Most demanding of all are younger 
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