A couple of thoughts:
1. I have long suspected that the Saudis have been inflating their statements of oil reserves. They have not answered to the cries of the west to “open the tap” to ease the world’s economic situation for the simple reason that they can’t. But I am willing to be corrected if I am wrong.
2. I am always suspicious of doom-and-gloom predictions that come with a date attached. Those sorts of things rarely pan out that far in advance. Who knows? Maybe the Saudis are also sitting atop their own shale oil, and will be able to start extracting it before 2030.
3. Regardless of the above, I also believe that Saudi Arabia will not maintain their status as a leading oil exporter forever, and that is the only source of their wealth. With their repressive society, they will never be a destination point for the world financial markets. They don’t spend or invest wisely as a nation. Once the oil revenue begins to dry up, it will be only a generation before their largesse is largely a thing of the past.
They have found that some of the oil fields are replenishing their oil so they may never run out.
Today’s Saudi oil use is not indicative of future use. Over 10 years ago the had begun a $50 billion conversion and expansion for phase 1 of a vast conversion to natural gas for much of the current domestic use.
I had planned to move back to the Arabian Peninsula for the start of this. Each area of the gas production centers were called Core Venture 1, 2 & 3. My wife and I were going through an all day orientation class when our future plans as well as Saudi Arabia’s changed. That was on Sept 11, 2001.
After several years of delay, the begun on a much smaller scale. But the projects are still going forward. At the same time they are building what will be the largest petrochemical/Refining complex in the world. Eventually they plan to export no oil at all and use little themselves