Following four decades of war, sanctions, nationalisation and unrest, oil and gas producers are gradually adjusting to rely less on the Middle East.
The countries around the Persian Gulf and on the Arabian Peninsula still contain the greatest concentration of giant and super-giant fields anywhere in the world and have some of the most attractive oil and gas geology.
But the increasingly hostile political environment above ground has forced oil and gas companies to hunt for new reserves in other parts of the world where the geology is tougher but political conditions are much easier.
Diversification away from the Middle East is one of the main reasons why oil prices have remained virtually unchanged as unrest has spread across much of the region since 2011.
The region’s importance has been declining in terms of both production and share of proved reserves in recent years.
In 2013, the countries of the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, which the BP Statistical Review of World Energy terms “the Middle East,” accounted for almost 33 percent of global oil production and 17 percent of gas output.
But the share of both has flattened in the last three years after rising strongly since the mid-1980s.
The shift away from the Middle East is even more marked in terms of proved reserves, which represent future production.
Middle Eastern countries accounted for 48 percent of proven oil reserves worldwide in 2013, down from 56 percent in 2005 and 64 percent in 1993, according to BP.
The region contained 43 percent of proven gas reserves, down only marginally from 46 percent in 2005, but ending the steadily increasing share that had characterised the market since the 1980s.
For the last two decades, oil and gas producers have been adding reserves more rapidly outside the Middle East.
Between 1993 and 2013, oil producers added to proved reserves at an average annual rate of 4.2 percent in the rest of the world but just 1 percent in the Middle East.
Over the same period, gas producers added reserves in the rest of the world at an average rate of 1.8 percent per year compared with 3 percent in the Middle East.
But growth in the Middle East has slowed recently. In the second half of the period, reserve growth in the rest of the world accelerated to 2.3 percent a year, while reserve growth in the Middle East eased to just 1.1 percent.
The metaphorical centre of gravity in the global oil and gas industries is gradually shifting from the Middle East towards North and South America, Africa and Asia.
And the trend seems set to continue over the next decade, given the shale boom in North America, and intensive exploration and production in other regions outside the Middle East.
