Introduction

The past few months have seen an upsurge in comment on Saudi Arabia in the British media at a similar rate to the upsurge in oil prices, the current cause of the country being in the news.

While previous Arab Media Watch studies found that portrayals of Saudi Arabia were “often negative and sometimes openly hostile” – particularly at the time of the Saudi royal visit to Britain in November 2007, and the BAE arms deal – the current spike in media attention has a far more reasoned character to it. For this report, AMW monitored all the British national daily newspapers (except the Financial Times), as well as the Evening Standard.

Blame Saudi

Out of a total of 20 editorials and commentaries, just five contained comments that seemed to place blame for the current oil price crisis on Saudi Arabia. The Daily Telegraph’s executive foreign editor Con Coughlin argued that “as things stand, protecting their precious reserves, rather than providing the world with cheaper oil, appears to be their main priority” (20 June 2008).

The newspaper’s international business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard described the visit of President Bush to the country in January “to plead for higher oil output,” only to be “politely rebuffed” (16 May 2008). Of Bush’s subsequent visit in May, Evans-Pritchard wrote: “If the Saudis deny help once again, they risk incalculable damage to their strategic alliance with Washington. The price of crude has rocketed by over $30 a barrel since that last fruitless meeting.”

He continued: “The US-Saudi tango has been on thin ice ever since the terrorist attacks of 9/11…Riyadh is giving no ground…The Saudis have let their output fall from 9.5m to 8.5m bpd over the last two years.” A few days later (20 May 2008), the Times’ US editor and assistant editor Gerard Baker wrote that following this meeting, “the helpful chaps at the House of Saud duly agreed to ramp up output by a few hundred thousand barrels a day.” He described this as “a drop in the tanker of Saudi,” which “to nobody’s great surprise…had no effect whatsoever.”

However, Baker cast doubt on Bush’s efforts, suggesting they were “more of a political gesture than a meaningful policy initiative.” The Times’ chief foreign affairs commentator Bronwen Maddox labelled the Opec summit in Jeddah “a Saudi show, to deliver a Saudi message” (25 June 2008), adding: “Before Sunday’s meeting, King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz al-Saud said that the kingdom was resolved to prevent oil prices from rising ‘in an unjustified and abnormal manner’, while announcing an increase in production too small to have any such impact.”

Don’t Blame Saudi

Saudi Arabia, as the world’s largest producer, naturally loomed large in recent coverage of the oil price crisis. Shadow business secretary Alan Duncan noted in the Daily Telegraph that it was “the only country with enough capacity and flexibility to turn on the taps…” (27 May 2008).

However, “life isn’t so simple,” he continued, explaining the relevance of various grades of oil and the corresponding different markets, concluding that “just turning on Opec’s taps would not necessarily solve the current problem.” In fact, he issued a word of warning: “…watch carefully the unbridled folly of those such as the Lib Dems who want to gang up on Saudi Arabia. Those same naifs who delighted at the fall of the Shah seem to want the same ghastly political outcome in Saudi Arabia- and the $300 oil that would come with it.”

The Telegraph’s executive foreign editor Con Coughlin argued that the country is working to capacity (20 June 2008): “…the Saudis announced their intention to increase production by another 500,000 barrels per day, which will bring total production to 9.7 million barrels – the kingdom’s highest ever level. And that is about the upper limit of what the Saudis can produce for any sustained period.” However, “the Saudis will only produce more oil if they believe it is in their interests to do so,” Coughlin added, somewhat contradictorily.

An Increase in Production Won’t Help

Independent columnist Dominic Lawson exonerated Saudi Arabia (and Opec) from blame in the current price crisis, writing that “far from operating as a restrictive cartel…12 of the 13 members of Opec are pumping out oil at maximum capacity” (23 May 2008).

The Saudis, being the 13th member, “are already producing well in excess of their official Opec quota.” He also noted that an announced production increase by 300,000 barrels per day “had no effect in halting the upward rush of the market price.” In another article (17 June 2008), Lawson stated that “oil makes hypocrites of us all,” noting the overarching presence of politics in the recent high-level visits to Saudi Arabia by George Bush, Ban Ki-Moon and Gordon Brown. “The strange thing is that there isn’t an absolute shortage of oil in the markets,” he added. “There’s already a sufficient amount of the black stuff to go round to meet current levels of demand, as the Saudis have wearily insisted often enough over the past few months.”

Therefore, Lawson concluded, King Abdullah’s pledge to raise output “is the purest politics, simply to get the weight of the world’s opprobrium off his kaffiyeh. I don’t blame the King, however.”

An editorial in the Independent (16 June 2008) suggested a few reasons for the oil price crisis: “There is little doubt that speculation is playing some part in pushing up the price of oil to an unprecedented $140 a barrel. Yet the fact that inventories have been at normal levels suggests this is not the driving force behind price rises. Growing demand is the far more likely culprit.” However, there was some suspicion felt about the Saudi role: “It is often asserted that Saudis still have vast oil reserves. But there is no independently verified proof of this. We have no choice but to rely on what they choose to tell us.”

Nonetheless, the editorial cast doubt on the possibility of bringing the oil price down by increasing Saudi production. “How long before our political leaders return to Saudi and its Opec allies to plead for more? And what will be the political price extracted for this?” asked the Independent, adding that “it is ridiculous for Western governments to tell Saudi Arabia and other oil producers how much they ought to pump out of the ground. The debate ought to be about how best to break our economic dependence on oil.”

An editorial in the same newspaper the following week (23 June 2008) likewise detected the overarching presence of politics in Brown’s attendance of the oil summit in Jeddah: “In attending the Saudi King’s energy summit at the weekend, the Prime Minister colluded in a publicity stunt of the first order…The clear intention was to convince hard-pressed British consumers that he feels our pain on energy prices and is doing his level best to bring them down.” The editorial apportioned blame to several factors: “The sky-rocketing price of energy in Britain stems at least as much from his own government’s tax take and the energy companies’ profits as it does from the vagaries of the Saudi oil flow. If production is an issue, then the Iraq war is at least as much to blame. A prime ministerial call for national belt-tightening would be a more honest and dignified approach.”

Independent columnist Michael Savage cast doubt on increased production as the solution to the oil price crisis (21 May 2008). “Recent events have shown that there are problems with the assumption that Opec could ease the oil price by turning on the taps,” he wrote, noting the “little impact” of an announced production increase. The Evening Standard’s business and financial commentator Anthony Hilton agreed (23 May 2008): “It is years since any new oil field was found which could deliver more than one million barrels a day and currently the world consumes more than 85 million barrels a day. Put like that, the increase in production of 300,000 barrels which President Bush got out of the Saudis last week was hardly worth the paper used for the press release.”

The Times’ international business editor Carl Mortishead had a different reason for doubting the effectiveness of an increase in Saudi oil production (23 June 2008): “The truth is that the world doesn’t need the extra Saudi crude. It’s the wrong sort of oil – too sulphurous and viscous for refiners trying to produce more petrol, diesel and jet fuel.”

An editorial in the same newspaper also cast doubt, citing global decline in supplies as the reason (20 April 2008): “Even Saudi Arabia, the desert kingdom that sits on 25 per cent of the world’s known hydrocarbon reserves, can no longer be relied on to turn on the taps, even if it wanted to. Oil is also becoming progressively harder to find and more expensive to refine.” Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie had little interest in production quotas, instead noting the reduction in traffic on British roads due to “the Shell tanker strike plus the staggering cost of petrol” (19 June 2008). He added that “we do have something to thank the Saudis for – we can get to work quicker.”

Statements & Predictions

Other commentators went less into the mechanisms of global oil markets and production, and instead made broader, gloomier statements and predictions about the future of oil, with particular regard to Saudi Arabia. However, a few commentators still saw a boom time for the country.

Cause for Concern

“Oil does terrible things to a nation, breaking the link between taxation and revenue, and so encouraging corruption,” wrote Daily Telegraph leader writer and Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan (30 April 2008). “Look at the Gulf States…unfortunate enough to be sitting on the stuff.”

The Guardian’s industrial correspondent Terry Macalister also sounded a note of alarm for Saudi Arabia, whose economy “and political stability” are “tied heavily to crude revenue” (20 June 2008). Despite the billions in extra revenue, Saudi leaders are “worried the long-term impact of high prices will be to cause conflict with western countries that militarily and politically support the House of Saud,” he added. “The kingdom’s rulers are also fearful that high prices will lead to lower demand as users switch to other fuels.” Similarly, the Independent’s diplomatic editor Anne Penketh wrote that “it appears the Saudis are just as worried that record prices…could dampen growth in the industrialised West and lower demand, which would in turn hurt the kingdom” (16 June 2008).

“Saudi Arabia is keenly aware of the political and economic effect of the oil market on the upwards spiral of food prices, and contributed $500m to the World Food Programme,” she added. The Times’ international business editor Carl Mortishead described a situation in which having oil is not enough, writing that “the price of natural gas in the Gulf has soared amid shortages and increased global demand” (19 May 2008). This is to blame for “the oil-rich Gulf states…planning to import coal…because, for the first time, the Gulf states are beginning to feel the burden of the soaring cost of fossil fuels.”

Cashing In

A couple of commentators saw a more positive side to Saudi Arabia’s current state, if only for its own national interest. Patrick Bishop in the Daily Mail focused on the wealth already accrued by the country (16 May 2008): “Despite their mind-boggling extravagance, they remain monstrously minted thanks to a 70-year oil boom that has sometimes faltered but never collapsed. Those who have succeeded in getting close to them have done pretty well, too.” The Times’ City columnist Edward Fennell agreed, writing that “whatever else may be happening in the rest of the world, the Gulf states are riding high on global demand for their oil,” thanks to “profits sky-high and confidence that this will continue for the foreseeable future” (12 June 2008).