The rise of the new energy world order

A steady migration of power and wealth from energy-deficit to energy-surplus nations: There are few countries - perhaps a dozen altogether - with enough oil, gas, coal and uranium to meet their own energy needs and provide significant surpluses for export. Not surprisingly, such states will be able to extract increasingly beneficial terms from the much wider pool of energy-deficit nations dependent on them for vital supplies of energy. These terms, primarily of a financial nature, will result in growing mountains of petrodollars being accumulated by the leading oil producers, but will also include political and military concessions.

The transfer of wealth alone is already mind-boggling. The oil-exporting countries collected an estimated $970 billion from the importing countries in 2006, and the take for 2007, when finally calculated, is expected to be far higher. A substantial fraction of these dollars, yen and euros have been deposited in sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), giant investment accounts owned by the oil states and deployed for the acquisition of valuable assets around the world.

In recent months, the Persian Gulf SWFs have been taking advantage of the financial crisis in the United States to purchase large stakes in strategic sectors of its economy....

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