Export Contribution of the Hydrocarbon Sector

Abstract

This study was based on a similar research by Subhes C. Bhattacharyya and Andon Blake (2010), which analysed how the oil export dependencies of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions oil producers had evolved over the past three decades, and which identified the main growth-driving factors from an energy policy perspective. This paper analyses the oil export dependence of each economy in terms of a multiplicative identity that captures the effective export price, export-to-primary oil supply ratio, oil dependence, and oil export intensity of the country. This paper, however, also incorporates certain relevant variations in terms of data scope and methodology to suit the recent development trends. Essentially, the number of countries was increased to include Oman, which is currently a major oil exporter. Further, instead of the Laspeyres index methodology, as in the case of the main reference text, this paper employed the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) primarily for perfect decomposition as the method does not allow for the existence of unexplained residuals. Again, the research includes an analysis of gas, with focus on Algeria and Qatar, two of the leading gas exporters at present. The reason for such inclusion is that gas is a major determinant of the state of the economy of these two countries. Finally, the research was updated by using the most recently available data (1980-2011).