Saudi Arabia's Gamble to Stop a Total Collapse

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Why Saudi Arabia is really building these insane projects.

[hser]

War Thunder is a highly detailed vehicle combat game containing over 2, 000 playable tanks, aircraft, and ships spanning over 100 years of development. Immerse yourself completely in dynamic battles with an unparalleled combination of realism and approachability.

[GeorgeAndGeorge]

hoser is like that rare bird that just shows up once in a while

[astraljava]

*Oil is dead
*the desert is empty
*the other continents are full
*Anything else is fuel

[BoostlessJoe]

the only thing i think about when i see these mega projects is: how much will maintenance cost? i don't think they are investing their money in a wise way

[flankana]

it seems like they looked at Norway's economy, said let's copy them but snorted 10 lines before they got to work

[JinKee]

“The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stone.”- MBS

[SoCalFreelance]

Urban explorers will have a field day exploring all these abandoned megaprojects in the middle of the desert.

[TheCoLDKanadian]

To be honest, calling it a gamble is a bit of an understatement. Their plans all range from crazy, to downright idiotic. I mean there's no shortage of people who have pointed out how silly some of the Saudi's plans are, with things like The Line and Mukaab taking most of the heat with how absurd they are.

Let's be real here, a lot of these ideas sound cool in concept, but I sincerely doubt most of them are feasible. Even if they were, I'm not sure if they'd make as big of an impact as the Saudis are hoping.

[armandoventura]

Oil ended up being a curse for the countries that have it, except Norway, they have a government that doesn't stink

[Nonamearisto]

France is currently the most-visited country in the world, with ~72 million tourists. No way will 100 million people a year go to visit a stinking hole in the desert just to see a needle-like building, a line of a city, and some ski resorts and water parks.

[alex_zetsu]

At least if your economy is 75% dependent on wheat, sugar, or coffee, you can always replant and grow a next year harvest. You're at the whims of the demands of the consumer, but there will always be a next year harvest. Coal and oil don't regenerate if you burry it and water it.

[AK-sjrl]

As a gulf Arab youth myself, not a Saudi tho, we share the same issues but on a smaller less acute scale because of our smaller size. For the entire neighborhood the trickiest bit would be restructuring that social contract (which I personally think is badly needed and is very long overdue) but without leaving citizens with the short end of the stick. Local authorities can't expect citizens to forgo of their oil-dependent financial safety buffers without first demonstrating shared responsibility (reducing royal court spending, tackling institutional and systemic corruption etc).

[alehaim]

Fun fact from the Red Line Podcast's episode of the green line seires focusing on climate change and Saudi Arabia, the Saudis will be actually the last ones producing oil profitably because their extraction is the cheapest. Basically as demand plummets and prices will drop, the more expensive extraction places for oil will become unprofitable eventually decreasing supply and thus giving a larger market share to Saudi Arabia, and this will create an interesting dynamic where Saudi Arabia by the virtue of geography will be one of the least affected by the end of oil. In contrast places like Nigeria will be the hardest hit by plummeting demand for oil because their more expensive oil will no longer be profitable.

[twistedyogert]

One of the other things that Saudi Arabia has no lack of is sunlight.
I could certainly see solar being an attractive alternative energy source over there.
At least on the local scale.
Perhaps MBS could surprise us and build a fusion power plant.

[ronald]

Unfortunately for Saudi Arabia, there is room for only so many Dubais. And my guess is that the long-term global demand for Dubais in the Middle East is less than 1.

[TheCrazeturk]

Hoser: “oil is DONE”
U.S. military: “it is done when I say it is done”

[TheStrangeBloke]

The reason Saudi Arabia is screwed on longterm oil profits isn't even just because of renewables. It's also because the cartel power of OPEC has been massively diminished. The reason they historically have been able to set prices is because OPEC would pull back production to raise prices, or pump extra to lower prices and drive competition out of business. They can't do this anymore though because there are major producers like the USA and Canada that aren't in OPEC, and countries like Russia that are technically in OPEC+ are selling as much as they can for uh, other reasons.

[aiocein]

Branding Canada as a "Safe, wealthy, and open country" is the biggest tourist trap I've ever heard

[ihavetowaitdaystochangem]

Saudi Arabia is the gonna be the first country to make it back to the hood

[AymanKhan]

I grew up there, ask me anything if you'd wanna know something about society there.

They are currently rolling back subsidies, but the extent to which utilities and public goods were subsidized was insane. Until they were rolled back recently, Premium Petrol was around ¢15 a litre, drinking water was ¢25 a litre (this is the desert), utility/piped home water was $1.5 per cubic metre, food was also insanely cheap considering everything besides dairy is imported