Listen to "The Dream of the Hijaz: Energy as a Tool for Integration" with DI Fellow, Justin Dargin

In a Dubai Initiative Brown Bag Seminar on March 11, 2009, Justin Dargin discussed the roots of the GCC energy crisis and potential solutions. Asking how a region with the some of the world's largest natural gas reserves can face a power and energy crisis, Dargin argued that the crisis can be traced back to the low administrative pricing of natural gas for domestic sales. He argued that, without some type of minor price liberalization, the region's prodigious natural gas reserves will remain inefficiently exploited. Dargin argued that unless GCC members address the underlying structural issues that inhibit the full development of hydrocarbon resources, all other solutions will likely prove cosmetic. Contrary to the pessimistic news about the depth of the financial crisis, Dargin argued, the current economic turmoil offers the region significant opportunities to rapidly increase its natural gas infrastructure.