The Oil Drum

This a guest post by Jeffrey J. Brown (westexas)

The following story about booming Russian car sales is a perfect example of the “Export Land” Model, where rising domestic consumption in exporting countries can overwhelm increases in oil production, resulting in lower net oil exports.

As I warned in January, 2006 (see my article, “Net Oil Exports Revisited”), net oil exports by all of the top three net oil exporters (Saudi Arabia, Russia and Norway) fell from 2005 to 2006 (EIA data). Based on the following article, since 2002, foreign car sales in Russia have been increasing at the rate of about 50% per year (doubling about every 1.4 years). I wonder what effect this is having on gasoline consumption in Russia?