Oil continues to influence global economics and politics like no other finite natural resource. In the 2024 US presidential election, the strategic commodity will be an important domestic issue.
As the biggest producer and consumer of oil on the planet, the US has a particularly strong relationship with the black stuff. And the candidates know it.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden has attempted to reduce dependence on fossil fuels with his green energy policy and other legislation. Yet at the same time he has overseen an increase in domestic oil production and promised motorists he will keep petrol prices low.
It’s an important promise in the US, a country whose love affair with cars is well known. Out-of-town shopping malls, long highways and a lack of government investment in public transportation have fuelled car dependency, with many cities being designed around huge road systems.
So it is perhaps unsurprising that pump prices are a significant factor influencing voters. Research has even shown that gasoline prices have an “outsized effect” on inflation expectations and consumer sentiment. As fuel prices go up, confidence in the economy goes down.
And while many European and Asian countries have shifted towards alternative energy sources, the US has not reduced its dependence on fossil fuels when it comes to transport. Electric models make up only 8% of vehicles sold in the US, compared to 21% in Europe and 29% in China.
Any rise in gasoline prices ahead of the US summer “driving season” – when holidays and better weather encourage more road travel and gasoline consumption is estimated to be 400,000 barrels per day higher than other times – would be a serious concern for the Democratic party.
Yet it’s also true that whoever is in the White House actually has limited ability to influence gasoline prices. Around 50% of the pump price is the cost of crude oil, the price of which is set by international markets.
And despite producing enough oil domestically to cover its consumption, the US continues to trade its oil around the world. Back in 2015, Congress voted to lift restrictions on US crude oil exports that had been in place for four decades, allowing US companies to sell their oil to the highest international bidder.
To complicate things further, some US refineries can only deal with a certain type of crude oil, which has to be imported. Neither international events or foreign production decisions are under the control of a US president.
Indeed, oil price spikes caused by political crises in other oil producing regions illustrate how continued dependence on oil itself, whether domestically produced or imported, leaves the US exposed to global market shocks which could in turn influence electoral outcomes.
After Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and production cuts from countries such as Saudi Arabia in 2023, the Republican party used a rise in gasoline prices to attack Biden’s environmental policies which had reduced domestic oil drilling and ended drilling leases in the Arctic.
Big oil, little oil
So while the US president has little say over the price of fuel that voters pay, domestic oil and gas regulations have a role to play, as oil producers make up a significant body of influence in the US.
Aside from the big firms backing Trump, the structure of the US oil industry is unique among oil producing states in that it is dominated by a very large number of small independent producers who earn money from the extraction and sale of oil from their land.
Some campaigners have blamed Biden for price rises at the pump
In most oil-producing countries, subsurface oil is owned by the state. But in the US, the mineral rights are owned by the private landowner who can earn royalties by allowing oil companies to drill on their land. In 2019, there were 12.5 million royalty owners in the US. Operating alongside them are some 9,000 independent fossil fuel companies which produce around 83% of the country’s oil and account for 3% of GDP and 4 million jobs.
Those companies drilling on state-owned land pay a royalty rate to the government, which up until recently was as low as 12.5% of the subsequent sales revenue. Biden’s decision to raise the rate to 16.67% did not go down well with oil producers.
Surging US oil production may help with the Democrats’ re-election bid, but rising gasoline prices will not – even though their levels depend on much more than Biden’s energy policies. Instead, it may be that the international economics of oil markets drive voters’ decisions – and determine who wins and who loses in November 2024.
America’s overdependence on foreign credit is no exception to the old adage that too much of a good thing is ultimately bad. It is safe to assume that over the next decade or so, the dollar will depreciate considerably and will no longer be the sole currency used for oil invoicing. Whilst IMF-governed SDRs (special drawing rights) would be the more egalitarian and macro-economically sensible alternative, the more likely is a tripartite reserve and oil invoicing system — dollars for the Americas, euros for Europe and surrounding states and renminbi for much of Asia.
At present, however, a realistic alternative to the dollar has yet to emerge, either as a reserve currency or as a universally acceptable unit in which to settle cross-border trade. At least two-thirds of all central bank reserves are held in dollars, four-fifths of all international trade transactions are settled in dollars and some 45 per cent of global debt is denominated in it. The government-issued euro bond market is less deep and far less liquid than its US counterpart and only recently have the Chinese started to encourage foreign investors to acquire renminbi. Nevertheless a majority of observers contend that the dollar will devalue considerably in the coming decades, either by default or design.
A range of reasons is proffered including the huge US fiscal and current account deficits (net US external debt grew by more than $1.3 trillion in 2008) and the fact that China — in order to enhance domestic consumption and purchasing power — is now gradually beginning to strengthen the renminbi. More fundamentally, and as the recent economic crisis has again highlighted, there is an inherent instability in having a dominant sovereign currency doubling up a global reserve currency. All of this leads to a series of unknowns: what if anything will replace the incumbent petrodollar? And, will the transition be gradual and multilaterally managed? Or will it be sharp and unfold in a mercantilistic haphazard manner?
In the 1960s Yale economist Robert Triffin argued that an international reserve system based on the sovereign currency of the dominant economy would always be unstable.
The Triffin dilemma
Firstly, because the only way for all other economies to accumulate net assets in the dominant currency is for the dominant economy to perpetually run a current account deficit. Secondly, while the dominant economy would be able to detach interest rate decisions from exchange rate implications, all other open economies would be constrained somewhat by the resulting appreciation or depreciation of their currency vis-à-vis the dominant currency.
Such exchange rate uncertainty has, in my view, become far more acute in the decades following the collapse of Bretton Woods. For as international trade increases and becomes an ever greater component of open economy GDP compositions, exchange rate fluctuations and uncertainties have an ever greater impact. Shock transmission — both positive and negative — can now be globally felt pretty much instantaneously thanks to the liberalisation of cross-border capital flows, widespread deregulation of domestic financial markets and advances in telecommunications. The ‘search for yield’ in cross-border currencies tends to result in too much credit creation and in turn, leads to asset/stock price bubbles — in other words a cycle of boom and bust.
With the noted exception of the US, all open market economies essentially have two choices when it comes to exchange rate regimes — neither is optimal, both have associated economic costs.
Two choices
One choice is the ‘free float’, yet this invariably causes uncertainty for both exporters and importers in the given economy and results in its output either being undervalued or overpriced. The other choice is a fixed, managed or crawling peg to the anchor currency. Yet, in order to maintain the peg the given central bank must effectively outsource key monetary policy decisions (in most cases to the Federal Reserve). When the business cycles of the US and the given pegging economy are out of sync, the latter is unable to use interest rates to dampen or foster economic activity; consider the Gulf’s recent era of double-digit inflation.
According to a former French foreign minister, the US has an ‘exorbitant privilege’ in that it is permanently receiving transfers from the rest of the world in the concrete form of seigniorage revenues and also by being able to employ a truly independent monetary policy.
The fact that oil has been priced in and sold in dollars since the foundation of Opec is also highly significant. For if oil, critical to all economies, can only be purchased in dollars, all nations have a strong incentive to accumulate dollars. Indeed it has been argued that the US government effectively prints money (on paper which has virtually no intrinsic value) to purchase the oil, not to mention all the other dollar-denominated commodities, its economy requires.
This state of affairs has been compared to a credit card that attracts customers by offering low interest and deferred payments, and two prominent American economists, Fred Bergstena and Barry Eichengreenb have both recently written in the respected Foreign Affairs journal warning of the problems of this set-up. While neither sees the dollar losing its hegemonic status in the short term, both stress the negative impact of such high levels of debt. A penchant for ‘cheap’ Asian imports has had a detrimental impact on domestic US manufacturing and it is the case that most of the foreign credit funds consumption rather than productive investment. Nevertheless many American officials are happy with the status quo as it enables the average citizen to live beyond his or her means, and government budget deficits to be financed by oil-exporting Middle Eastern countries.
Future scenarios
Even if those who argue that it is in America’s self interest to reduce dependency on foreign credit are dismissed, recent events suggest a gradual dollar de-leveraging process will take place regardless. Indeed, in the absence of another real estate price boom or another ‘0-per-cent finance consumer-fuelled boom’, an export-led recovery is by far the most viable longer term US growth strategy, and a weaker dollar would facilitate this.
Concern over the magnitude of the US’s debt and the evident instability of the current global monetary system, has led many to look for alternatives. Some projections indicate that by 2030, the US will be transferring as much as 7 per cent of its entire annual output to the rest of the world in the form of debt repayments (debt erosion by way of dollar devaluation is a possible response yet this would hurt all of those outside of the US with dollar-denominated assets).
China’s central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, made the headlines earlier this year when he suggested a supra-national currency based on the IMF’s SDRs could eliminate the ‘inherent risks of credit-based sovereign currency’. This cannot simply be discounted as posturing for China has over $800-billion-worth of liquid dollar reserves: Any move by the People’s Republic would have ramifications for all other dollar holders.
The most utopian — yet least likely — future scenario would be the implementation of some form of supranational currency, seigniorage would be equitably distributed and self interest would give way to the collective interest. This would result in a fairer deal for developing economies, as according to José Ocapoc, in order to maintain pegs or insure against capital flight such states have little choice but to transfer resources to the rich industrialised world — a phenomenon that the UN has called ‘reverse aid’.
The concept of a supranational fiat currency is not new, at the very least it dates back to Keynes. He argued that the international community should set up a unit of exchange to act as a reserve currency and even suggested that it be named the Bancor. The IMF’s SDR facility is not too dissimilar and a recent UN commission headed by the economic Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has advocated a greatly expanded role for SDRs. Earlier this year the G20 did agree to create an additional $250 billion in SDRs; taking their share of global reserves from under 1 per cent to about 5 per cent.
Problems with multilateralism
There are of course various problems with multilateralism — mercantilist self interest being a predominant one — one only need consider the recent debacle at the UN’s Climate Change summit at Copenhagen to get an idea of the likely difficulties agreement on a new global form of exchange is likely to be. More practically though, SDRs are not as yet legal tender, nor are they backed by debt markets and for a reserve currency to work a deep and liquid market is deemed essential.
Another possible future scenario would see increased competition between the various emerging currency blocs, tit-for-tat protectionism and the potential for considerable currency and exchange rate instability.
Much of this could arise over the thorny issue of oil invoicing. The petrodollar standard, it has been argued, is the ‘Achilles heel’ of the dollar’s continued hegemonic status. China needs more oil and, going forward will want to purchase some of this with its strengthening renminbi, this entails ending the exclusivity of the petrodollar standard.
If a transition to a tripartite invoicing system were not to take place consensually and gradually, oil could suddenly become very expensive in dollar terms and this would disproportionately impact on American consumers and its economy alike. This alongside the need to transfer income overseas to pay off debt could erode Americans’ standards of living. In different ways both Bergsten and Eichengreen have argued that if the US does not soon begin to address the issue of overdependence on foreign debt, its ability to pursue autonomous economic and foreign policy objectives will become increasingly difficult.
The most likely future scenario is piecemeal and gradual dollar devaluation — this is both in the interests of the US and all of its counterparts. Those with dollar assets do not want to see these lose value too precipitously and neither the Europeans nor the Japanese want their currencies to appreciate any more than they have done so recently. In the longer term the current reserve ratio of 60/30 — dollar/euro will probably recalibrate to 40/40/15 — dollar/euro/renminbi.
In the past decade China has pretty much made all it can out of being the world’s factory and now needs to ‘move up the value chain’. In order to increase household incomes and boost domestic private consumption a stronger renminbi will be needed. This will boost domestic consumption and purchasing power, a stronger currency would make foreign assets cheaper to acquire. It would also turn the renminbi into a potential reserve currency and, at the same time, enable it to take on a more prominent role on the global stage.
Russia’s central bank confirmed in a recent report that it had increased the share of euros in its reserves from around 42 per cent to more than 47 per cent in 2008 and that it intended to further reduce its dollar holdings in the coming period. Its proximity to the Eurozone is no doubt a key rationale, as it seeks to hedge against increasingly expensive euro-denominated imports it is logical to consider holding more euros in reserve, and invoicing the Europeans in euros for their oil needs.
Yet as Stiglitz contends, a move to a dollar-euro duopoly would still result in global imbalances and disadvantage poorer nations who would continue to need to hold large amounts of developed world’s currencies in reserve either in order to maintain exchange rate pegs or in an endeavour to hedge against economic downturns. Similarly, a tripartite reserve system — comprising of dollars, euros and renminbi — while more distributed, would still fall short of a well regulated and suitably tradable supranational fiat currency.
Despite this shortcoming, from the perspective of the GCC, if a tripartite reserve system were to emerge each of the currency blocs would have the strength and thus ability to purchase commodities such as oil in their currency. This would be no bad thing for the Gulf’s oil exporters as it would enable them to build up a more diversified savings portfolio and possibly even pursue a more independent monetary policy.
Bio:
Emilie Rutledge is Assistant Professor of Economics at the United Arab Emirates National University
ON JULY 1ST 1944 the rich world’s finance experts convened in a hotel in the New Hampshire mountains to discuss the post-war monetary system. The Bretton Woods system that emerged from the conference saw the creation of two global institutions that still play important roles today, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. It also instituted a fixed exchange-rate system that lasted until the early 1970s.
A key motivation for participants at the conference was a sense that the inter-war financial system had been chaotic, seeing the collapse of the gold standard, the Great Depression and the rise of protectionism. Henry Morgenthau, America’s Treasury secretary, declared that the conference should “do away with the economic evils—the competitive devaluation and destructive impediments to trade—which preceded the present war.” But the conference had to bridge a tricky transatlantic divide. Its intellectual leader was John Maynard Keynes, the British economist, but the financial power belonged to Harry Dexter White, acting as American President Roosevelt’s representative.
The strain of maintaining fixed exchange rates had proved too much for countries in the past, especially when their trade accounts fell into deficit. The role of the IMF was designed to deal with this problem, by acting as an international lender of last resort. But while White, as the representative of a creditor nation (and one with a trade surplus), wanted all the burden of adjustment to fall on the debtors, Keynes wanted constraints on the creditors as well. He wanted an international balance-of-payments clearing mechanism based, not on the dollar, but a new currency called bancor. White worried that America would end up being paid for its exports in “funny money”; Keynes lost the argument. Ironically enough, now that America is a net debtor, White’s administrative successors have called for creditors to bear part of the adjustment when trade balances get out of line.
The Bretton Woods exchange-rate system saw all currencies linked to the dollar, and the dollar linked to gold. To prevent speculation against currency pegs, capital flows were severely restricted. This system was accompanied by more than two decades of rapid economic growth, and a relative paucity of financial crises. But in the end it proved too inflexible to deal with the rising economic power of Germany and Japan, and America’s reluctance to adjust its domestic economic policy to maintain the gold peg. President Nixon abandoned the link to gold in 1971 and the fixed exchange-rate system disintegrated.
Both the IMF and World Bank survived. But each has fierce critics, not least for their perceived domination by the rich world. The IMF has been criticised for the conditions it attaches to loans, which have been seen as too focused on austerity and the rights of creditors and too little concerned with the welfare of the poor. The World Bank, which has mainly focused on loans to developing countries, has been criticised for failing to pay sufficient attention to the social and environmental consequences of the projects it funds. It is hard to believe that either institution will be around in another 70 years’ time unless they change to reflect the growing power of emerging markets, particularly China.
It now seems inevitable that the GCC’s monetary union project will be delayed. The ground has already been prepared, so to speak
The central bank governors of the bloc’s two largest economies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, recently said that the 2010 deadline is “very ambitious” and that the project may be postponed to “2015 or beyond”.
Few will be surprised. In conjunction with the lack of tangible progress, there has recently been a series of setbacks. The first was Oman’s decision to opt out; clearly a psychological, if not economic blow. The second was Kuwait’s decision to revert back to a trade-weighted exchange rate peg. Between 2003 and mid-2007 it had aligned itself with all other states by officially pegging to the dollar (albeit with a small band of flexibility).
Potentially the most significant setback, however, was a collective decision in September which permitted member states to tackle inflation independently. If this translates into diverging monetary policies, it will jeopardise (even further) the stability of bilateral exchange rates, one of the few monetary convergence areas where the GCC has been doing well.
It may well be the case that the current oil price boom has dampened the desire (need) for economic integration and consequently a single currency – the pinnacle of integration – has been placed on the back-burner. The GCC’s commitment to MU was strongest in 2001 at the tail-end of a protracted period of low oil prices, lacklustre GDP growth and declining per capita incomes in many states.
It is possible that an announcement will be made just prior to or during this December’s GCC summit. Probable reasons for the delay include the fact that the timeframe is (now) too tight, and/or that diverging inflation rates of approximately 10 per cent – Qatar and Saudi Arabia’s official inflation rates were 11.8 per cent and 2.3 per cent respectively in 2006 -make the task of meeting this convergence criterion too difficult.
Little preparation
While the first argument may now be true, it is only so because so little has been done to prepare for the monetary transition; for instance, no agreement has yet been reached on the mandate and role of a GCC central bank let alone its location, neither have convergence criteria/targets been officially agreed upon and endorsed.
The second argument holds more weight, but if regional commitment to MU were strong enough, inflation rate differentials could be tackled. In the years prior to the euro’s launch there was also considerable inflationary divergence, but post-Maastricht this decreased rapidly from a high of 20 per cent to around 1 per cent by 1999.
Although most participating states have outsourced their monetary policy to the Federal Reserve and subsequently aren’t able to use interest rates to reign in inflation, there are other ways. These include holding back on fiscal spending (staggering government financed infrastructure upgrades), implementing more extensive price controls (for instance rent-caps) and absorbing liquidity through the issuance of bonds.
If and when an announcement does come, it is more likely to be a deferral than a complete abandonment. This will partly be for face-saving reasons, but primarily because GCC MU has been such a long-standing ambition, first mentioned in 1982 and more recently recommitted to in the New Economic Agreement of 2001.
Turning to the question of whether a delay matters, in many respects the short-term answer is no. A postponement will not harm current levels of economic growth and neither will it deter capital retention. In addition, many analysts argue that a GCC MU would only have marginal utility, because a) intra-regional exchange rates are already reasonably stable, and b) intra-regional trade is seen to be limited. Thus, participating economies would only see small gains from two key MU advantages: the elimination of exchange rate risk and the reduction of transaction costs.
Nevertheless, even if the potential trade benefits arising from a GCC MU are initially small, they should not be discounted. If hydrocarbons are factored out, intra-GCC trade is not as insignificant as often assumed – it stands at around a fifth of the total. In addition, trade gains resulting from currency unions are often considered “endogenous” – trade will increase as a result of the union, regardless of its level prior to the union.
In addition to the direct (as a consequence of MU) benefits there are a range of indirect (as a result of the necessary preparations and policy reforms in the lead-up to MU) benefits, and it is these that will be bring the most advantages to the GCC.
Indirect benefits will arise from the creation of a GCC common market, establishing a pan-GCC economic data-gathering institution, tasked with collating and standardising national statistics in order to measure monetary and fiscal convergence, and the implicit need for budget transparency and accountability. Many of these institutional and policy reforms necessary in the lead-up to MU, or the process of preparing for it, are likely to enhance business sector confidence, encourage greater levels of intra-state investment, deepen financial markets and encourage more FDI. These outcomes would all be beneficial for the GCC’s economic diversification endeavours.
Not seeking to downplay the prudent investment and diversification measures all states are making with their current oil windfall revenues, private sector job creation remains one of the biggest challenges facing the region. In order to defuse the “unemployment time-bomb”, hundreds of thousands of non-oil dependent private employment opportunities will need to be created during the next decade.
Therefore any policy including MU that is seen to aid and abet private sector confidence and growth should be seriously entertained. Of course a GCC common market and statistical agency could exist without there ever being a “Gulf dinar” in circulation. But if the intention to form a single currency acts as a catalyst, a carrot on a stick if you will, why not use it?
Insight
“For governments of the region struggling with declining currencies and domestic inflation, there are decisions on the table. “Given the UAE’s rapid and sustained economic growth, nominal appreciation of the dirham is required to allow the real exchange rate to move towards equilibrium value,” says Syed Basher, a regional economist. Simply, that means revaluation. The arguments about the dollar peg have been simmering for some time, given that exchange and interest rates seem too low for the region’s hothouse conditions. In an HSBC survey issued last week, 39 per cent of regional executives were reported as saying that removing the dollar peg would have a beneficial effect, compared with 18 per cent saying the opposite. A Gulf News poll last week produced results suggesting that 62 per cent of residents want a GCC single currency. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean the issue is coming to the boil. Saudi Arabia this week tightened banks’ reserve requirements while cutting official interest rates in line with the Fed. It was a demonstration of a monetary dilemma which, obscure as it might seem, impacts all those working in this region. But we all know what they say about those who can’t stand the heat.” — Andrew Shouler, Deputy Managing Editor, Gulf News
The dollar is once again losing value, and has depreciated by seven per cent against the euro since the start of the year. How far it will go is anybody’s guess, but the odds are, it will fall further.
Li Yong, China’s Vice-Minister of Finance, has talked of a possible further 25 per cent fall. According to some estimates the amount the United States now owes to the rest of the world now stands at $3 trillion. This, not anything else, is the prime reason for the dollar’s decline.
Although the Federal Reserve does not want to see the dollar collapse, it probably views any dollar devaluation as a convenient way of partially reducing the US’ huge current account deficit. If the dollar declines so will the ‘value’ of the deficit. However, a falling dollar does not bode well for the GCC. It will exacerbate inflation as European and Japanese goods become more expensive and it will also result in a depreciation of the ‘real’ value of the region’s reserve holdings. In addition, because oil and gas are priced and sold in dollars the GCC also stand to loose some revenues in this respect also.
Nevertheless, we have seen only a limited response to these currency conundrums in the form of Kuwait’s decision to allow its currency to appreciate marginally against the dollar. There has been talk from several of the region’s central bankers about a possible realignment in their foreign reserve holdings but as yet no concrete action has been announced. For the time being at least, any speculation that other GCC states were about to follow Kuwait’s lead have been discounted. Both the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority and the Central Bank of Oman came out and publicly defended the status quo.
Apart for arguments such as ‘providing stability’ and ‘eliminating intra-regional exchange rate risk’ (all 6 GCC states are pegged to the US dollar, albeit Kuwait maintains a more flexible band within which to fluctuate), there is another argument for maintaining the dollar peg. And that is that the collective peg is an interim step towards forming a single GCC currency in 2010. Having a joint peg is a good thing, as it eliminates exchange rate risk within the bloc, but it could just as easily be achieved with a joint peg to the euro or a trade weighted basket of currencies.
Happy creditors no more? For many years Asian central banks, particularly those of China and Japan, have been willing to finance US deficits despite the risks, in order to support their own export-led growth models. However, the scale of financing (subsidising) required to sustain the US’ current account deficit may soon exceed their absorptive capacities. A law of diminishing returns also comes into play; there comes a point when alternative economic growth models look more appealing that accumulating ever greater numbers of underperforming US Treasury Bonds.
The current situation is somewhat perplexing, the country that controls the world’s de facto reserve currency, also happens to be the world’s largest debtor. In any other walk of life, you would be forgiven for being somewhat wary if lending to someone with huge debts. The US like any other debtor may be tempted to use (or not do anything much to prevent) devaluation to reduce external deficit, and this is hardly a desirable trait for a reserve currency.
The dollar has been the dominant reserve currency for at least the past half century and will no doubt continue to be one for some time to come. It can however no longer take this role for granted. One thing is constant in history and that is nothing remains the same forever. Back in the early 1990s after a period where the dollar devalued considerably, many economists at the time speculated about the dollar’s role as the world’s de facto reserve currency. The dollar, nevertheless rebounded, and continued to play its role, in part because there was no viable alternative.
This has changed. Today we have the euro (tomorrow perhaps, even the Yuan). In general for a currency to qualify as a reserve one it needs to meet several criteria including being backed by a large economy, which itself has free flows of capital, open and deep financial markets and low inflation. The euro zone has all of these characteristics and to top it all, it runs a current account surplus.
Those who switch first stand to gain the most: It is now estimated that the US’ deficit consumes no less than two thirds of the worlds total current account surplus. Joseph Stiglitz, a former head of the IMF, recently pointed out that there is obviously something peculiar about a global financial system in which America borrows more than $2 billion each and every day from other countries (in March the US’ Trade Deficit was $62bn) whilst lecturing them on fiscal responsibility.
One could view the current state of affairs as a bit like the classic ‘prisoner’s dilemma’. If any one Asian central bank switched its reserves into euros tomorrow it would undoubtedly benefit vis-à-vis the others, but if they all attempted to switch at the same time they would collectively see the value of their reserves fall considerably, as the resulting run on the dollar would adversely affect all that hold it in reserve.
Reactionary tendencies will probably mean that the GCC dollar peg remains for the time being but there is a strong and growing argument for a move away from too much dependence on the dollar. If Gulf central banks were to buy euros today with some of their dollars reserves, they would get far better exchange rates than if they were to wait for Asian central banks to make the move first.
It is surely worth the while of the GCC’s central bankers to seriously consider alternative options to the current status quo, it would be a shame if the considerable economic achievements of the past few years are washed away by maintaining a rigid dollar peg that may be extremely expensive to maintain and cause unnecessary inflation.
Bio.
“Emilie Rutledge is an economist with Gulf Research Centre” (2006).
Current trends indicate demand and supply will increase, says expert
During the Gulf Research Centre’s third annual conference recently, Anas Alhajji, moderator of the Gulf Energy Program-me at the GRC, said he expects oil prices to stabilise in 2006.
Prices will only decline significantly, he said, if the US falls into recession as a result of a decline in government spending. “The soaring price in 2005 was due to the market fundamentals of limited supply and rising demand. Opec members ran out of marketable excess capacity, and non-Opec production was lower than expected, while global demand especially in the US, India and China continued to grow,” Dr. Alhajji said. Current trends estimate that both demand and supply will increase in 2006. However, oil prices will depend on the size of the additional production capacity, he added.
According to experts at the Dubai-based GRC, the Gulf is likely to experience a period of high growth in 2006, a modest decline in oil prices, significant political developments, rising tension, and a slow shift in focus towards Asia in the realm of international relations.
Emilie Rutledge, economist at the GRC, said that high oil prices and the increasing global demand for oil triggered a boom for the GCC economies. The region’s aggregate GDP rose by 5.3 per cent, stock markets grew by 79 per cent and market capitalisation touched $1.1 trillion, an increase of 110 per cent over 2004. The aggregate GCC trade surplus stood at $253 billion in 2005, and imports of good and services rose by 20 per cent, she said. “Regional governments are generally aiming to avoid over-dependence on oil through economic diversification strategies, labour nationalisation policies and the privatisation process,” she said.
Vital issues
GRC Chairman Abdul Aziz Sager highlighted important issues in 2005, including the continuing political reform process that has firmly implanted itself in the region, the effects of the unprecedented increase in oil prices on the GCC economies, as well as the numerous security challenges that confront the region. “Despite the economic and strategic importance it represents, the developments in the Gulf region during 2005 were not reassuring as far as the status of Gulf security is concerned,” Sager added.
The GCC defence budget amounted to $34 billion during 2005, a $4 billion increase over 2004. The budget growth could be related to higher revenues because of oil prices, said Mustafa Alani, Director of the Security and Terrorism Programme at the GRC.
Iran’s decision to set up an oil and associated derivatives market next year has generated a great deal of interest
This is primarily because of Iran’s reported intention to invoice energy contracts in euros rather than dollars.
The contention that this could unseat the dollar’s dominance as the de facto currency for oil transactions may be overstated, but this has not stopped many commentators from linking America’s current political disquiet with Iran to the proposed Iranian Oil Bourse (IOB).
The proposal to set up the IOB was first put forward in Iran’s Third Development Plan (2000-2005). Mohammad Javad Assemipour, who heads the project, has said that the exchange will strive to make Iran the main hub for oil deals in the region and that it should be operational by March 2006.
Geographically Iran is ideally located as it is in close proximity to major oil importers such as China, Europe and India.
It is unlikely, in the short term at least, that large numbers of energy traders will decamp and set up shop in Iran; a country which happens to be categorised as a member of the “axis of evil” by the president of the world’s largest oil-importing country; the United States.
But over time, Iran could take some business away from the two incumbent energy exchanges, the International Petroleum Exchange and the New York Mercantile Exchange who both invoice sales solely in dollars.
Economic motives
If successful, the IOB will provide Iran with concrete economic benefits especially if it invoices at least some of its energy contracts in euros.
Iran has around 126 billion barrels of proven oil reserves about 10% of the world’s total, and has the world’s second largest proven natural gas reserves.
From an economic perspective, invoicing oil in euros would be logical for Iran as trade with the euro zone countries accounts for 45% of its total trade. More than a third of Iran’s oil exports are destined for Europe, while oil exports to the United States are non existent.
The IOB could create a new euro denominated crude oil marker, which in turn would enable GCC nations to sell some of their oil for euros. The bourse should lead to greater levels of foreign direct investment in Iran’s hydrocarbon sector and if it facilitates futures trading it will give regional investors an alternative to investing in their somewhat overvalued stock markets.
Euro zone countries alone account for almost a third of Iran’s imports and currently Iran must exchange dollars earned from hydrocarbon exports into euros which involves exchange rate risk and transaction costs.
The decline in the dollar against the euro since 2002 – some 26% to date – has substantially reduced Iran’s purchasing power against its main importing partner.
If the decline continues, more states will increase the percentage of euros vis-à-vis the dollar they hold in reserve and in turn this will increase calls both in Iran and the GCC to invoice at least some of their oil exports in euros.
A move away from the dollar and a strengthening of the euro would further benefit Iran as according to a member of Iran’s Parliament Development Commission, Mohammad Abasspour, more than half of the country’s assets in the Forex Reserve Fund are now euros.
It is primarily the US which stands to lose out from any move away from the petrodollar status quo, it is the world’s largest importer of oil and a move away from invoicing oil in dollars to euros will undoubtedly have a negative effect on its economy.
Fewer nations would be willing to hold the dollar in reserve which would cause a significant devaluation and result in the loss seigniorage revenues. In addition, US energy-related companies stand to lose out as they will be unable to participate in the bourse due to the longstanding American trade embargo on Iran.
Political considerations
In the 1970s, not long after the collapse of the gold standard, the US agreed with Saudi Arabia that OPEC oil should be traded in dollars in effect replacing the gold standard with the oil standard.
Since then, consecutive US governments have been able to print dollar bills and treasury bonds in order to paper over huge current account and budgetary deficits, last year’s US current account deficit was $646 billion.
Needless to say, the current petrodollar system greatly benefits the US; it enables it to effectively control the world oil market as the dollar has become the fiat currency for international trade.
In terms of its own oil imports, the US can print dollar bills without exporting commodities or manufactured goods as these can be paid for by issuing yet more dollars and T-bills.
George Perkovich, of the Washington based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has argued that Iran’s decision to consider invoicing oil sales in euros is “part of a very intelligent strategy to go on the offense in every way possible and mobilise other actors against the US.”
This viewpoint however, ignores Iran’s economic motives, just because the decision, if eventually taken, displeases the US does not mean that the rationale is purely political.
In light of such sentiments and the US’s current insistence that Iran be referred to the UN Security Council Iran must consider and weigh carefully the economic benefits against the potential political costs.
Although a matter of conjecture, some observers consider Iran’s threat to the petrodollar system so great that it could provoke a US military attack on Iran, most likely under the cover of a preemptive attack on its nuclear facilities, much like the cover of WMD America used against Iraq.
In November 2000, Iraq began selling its oil in euros, its Oil For Food account at the UN was also transferred into euros and later it converted its $10 billion UN held reserve fund into euros.
At the time of the switch many analysts were surprised and saw it as nothing more than a political statement, which in essence it may have been, but the euro has gained roughly 17% over the dollar between then and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Perhaps unsurprisingly, since the US led occupation of Iraq its oil sales are once again being invoiced in dollars.
The best policy choice for Iran would be to proceed with the IOB as planned as the economic advantages of such a bourse are clear, but in order to mitigate against the potentially greater political “threat” should provide customers with flexibility.
It would make it much harder for America to object to the new bourse, overtly or covertly, if Iran allows customers to decide for themselves which currency to use when purchasing oil, such an approach would facilitate for euro purchases without explicitly ruling out the dollar.
Bio
“Emilie Rutledge is a British economist who is currently based at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai” (2005).
