Essay Sample on Arabian Peninsula

Oil. There is olive, soybean, and canola. And of course, the other, probably more important type of oil. You most likely don’t have it in your kitchen cabinet, but with an industry of over 2 trillion dollars, natural oil and gas has shaped our international economy and is such a huge factor in our modern society. It fuels everything from our electricity, to our air conditioners to our cars. It especially has made an impact in the middle east, a cultural and political region in west Asia. Many people stereotypically think of the middle east as a war-torn desert, which sadly isn’t that inaccurate as most of the middle east is dry arid land and many countries that lie within it are less developed. However, within this region lies the Arabian Peninsula and as it has also experienced a poor climate and political instability in the past, it is expected that the Arabian Peninsula would also be less developed like much of the Middle East today. However, all countries that lie on the Peninsula are very wealthy, except for Yemen. These wealthy countries include Saudi Arabia, Oman, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait and Bahrain, a wealthy island nation off the coast of the peninsula that is culturally tied to it. But what makes this area so wealthy and developed compared to much of the middle east. As I’m sure you have guessed, the short answer is oil, but to better explain the socioeconomic conditions of the region and the titanic industry that is oil, I will go into depth about the history of the Arabian Peninsula, detail its transformation of wealth, and explain what that means for both the region’s future and ours. 

In early history the region had always played a fairly important role.  The Arabian Peninsula lies between Africa, Central/East Asia, and Europe. Because the peninsula played the role as a bridge between Africa and Asia, along with the early history of humans in the area, the region became crucial in early societies. Still, most of the land was not suitable for agriculture and did not have fresh water, so many communities there, especially ones that were more secluded from the rest of the middle east, were poor. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Empire took control over much of the coastal regions of the Arabian Peninsula, which was the start of a large amount of conflict between the communities of the region and the Ottomans. This resulted in the collapse of the First Saudi State, which helped contribute to the already somewhat poor conditions of the region. Starting in the 19th century, Britain started intervening in the area, taking control of Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, parts of Oman, and parts of Yemen. And still during this time these colonies remained underdeveloped and nomadic. But as mentioned before, today the countries of the Peninsula are very wealthy, so of course something had to change. According to National Geographic, in 1938 an American-owned oil well drilled into a large source of petroleum oil in Saudi Arabia, which was soon identified as the largest source of petroleum oil in the world. Oil had already been discovered in the middle east and the Arabian Peninsula, but this large discovery of natural gas in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the 1930s led to an oil frenzy. Especially as the demand for oil was increasing while the Middle East was being identified as a natural gas hotspot. Even after these discoveries, much of the Peninsula was underdeveloped, but as time progressed oil production from the countries of the region increased greatly. Though Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE were still British colonies until the 60s and 70s and Britain controlled much of their oil, the territories small size and population made it so many of the colony’s natives were able to enjoy high rise in employment and wages in the oil companies that were sprouting up everywhere. Even though Saudi Arabia became an official nation in 1932, a lot of U.S. and other foreign cooperations controlled oil wells in Saudi Arabia. However, the Saudi government helped operate and tax these cooperations, which provided vast amounts of revenue for the country. Though other countries in the Middle East such as Iran, Iraq, and Syria also had large deposits of oil, those countries and others experience and have experienced much more political instability, exploitation, and corruption. Not only that, but like mentioned before, many countries on the Peninsula are small in both population and size, such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, etc., and believe it or not this small size was an advantage in more ways than one. Because some of these countries have fewer people, they use much less resources, including oil, meaning they can export more of these resources. And though some of the Arabian Peninsula countries produce less oil than the rest of the middle eastern countries, a big reason for that is simply because the countries do not have a large amount of land. But still, if you combine Kuwait’s, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain’s, and Qatar’s land area, that area would be less than 1/10 of Iran’s total size. But if you combine Kuwait’s, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain’s, and Qatar’s proven oil reserves, those countries have over 70 billion more barrels of oil compared to Iran. Because of this mass oil reserves and ability to manage them, the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, except of course Yemen as they have much less oil reserves and are less developed, are extremely wealthy and developed today. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have even managed to create some of the most advanced cities in the world. Dubai for example, a thriving metropolis that houses the tallest building in the world, was crafted in the desert of the United Arab Emirates, a country less than 1/3 the size of Nevada with a population of around only half the city of Los Angeles. Countries that were once ravaged by colonization and countries that are still ravaged by lack of natural resources are excelling, and this sounds like a great thing. It truly is a great thing. But society is changing a lot. More and more countries are becoming progressive, meaning turning away from non-sustainable energy sources such as natural gas and oil. Oil demands have already plummeted in the past couple years because of the Covid-19 economic crisis, and those same unstable economic conditions we saw could continue.  Let’s take Venezuela for example. Venezuela has the most proven oil reserves out of any country in the world, yet through government mismanagement the country is in severe poverty and has seen some of the worst economic inflation ever recorded. Even if the oil industry of the Arabian Peninsula sees through economic crisis right now, there is only so much oil that can be pulled from the ground. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the common practice of fracking to remove oil from the ground uses mass amounts of water, meaning that fracking in the Arabian Peninsula is taking water resources from an already drought plagued region. But again, let’s ignore current economic issues along with environmental issues. Even then, both the international economy and particularly the Arabian Peninsula face dire issues. One hundred fourteen. That is the estimated number of years it will take for us to run out of coal according to the MET Group. Fifty-three. That is the number of years it will take for us to run out of natural gas. Fifty-one. That is the number of years it will take for us to run out of oil. Yet natural gas makes up 40 percent of the electricity generation in the U.S. Oil and natural gas may have much more to offer than people think. Millions of jobs, a total economic transformation of many places, yet because places like the Arabian Peninsula have built so much on this one substance, a small problem will cause major effects. With all the we have to offer by this so called “black gold”, we also have so much to lose. But only if we hope, we could relish in our success today, and relish a more sustainable future tomorrow.