The Middle East has been shaped, of course, not only by the maps of frontiers but by different kinds of maps—of geology, of oil and gas wells, of pipelines and tanker routes. The oil and gas, and the revenues and riches and power that flow from them, remain central to the identity of the region. Yet the oil price collapse that began in 2014 has fed into a new debate about the future of oil. Not much more than a decade ago, the world worried about “peak oil,” the idea that oil supplies would run out. The focus has shifted to “peak demand”: how long consumption of oil will continue to grow and
...more
