Areas Of The World More Vulnerable To Collapse
Certain areas of the world are more vulnerable to economic and societal collapse. While most analysts gauge the strength or weakness of an economy based on its outstanding debt or debt to GDP ratio, there is another factor that is a much better indicator. To understand which areas and regions in the world that will suffer a larger degree of collapse than others, we need to look at their energy dynamics.
For example, while the United States is still the largest oil consumer on the planet, it is no longer the number one oil importer. China surpassed the United States by importing a record 8.9 million barrels per day (mbd) in 2017. This data came from the recently released BP 2018 Statistical Review. Each year, BP publishes a report that lists each countries’ energy production and consumption figures.
BP also lists the total oil production and consumption for each area (regions and continents). I took BP’s figures and calculated the Net Oil Exports for each area. As we can see, the Middle East has the highest amount of net oil exports with 22.3 million barrels per day in 2017:
The figures in the chart above are shown in “thousand barrels per day.” Russia and CIS (Commonwealth Independent States) came in second with 10 mbd of net oil exports followed by Africa with 4 mbd and Central and South America with 388,000 barrels per day. The areas with the negative figures are net oil importers.
The area in the world with the largest net oil imports was the Asia-Pacific region at 26.6 mbd followed by Europe with 11.4 mbd and North America (Canada, USA & Mexico) at 4.1 mbd.
Now, that we understand the energy dynamics shown in the chart above, the basic rule of thumb is that the areas in the world that are more vulnerable to collapse are those with the highest amount of net oil imports.
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