SECURITY OF MIDDLE EAST ENERGY RESOURCES AND ASIA-PACIFIC ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Rapid economic and steady high rates of economic growth has drastically increased the need for imported oil in Asia-Pacific region; China -an oil exporting country in the region till 1993- is now the third oil importer of the world with the neighboring Japan being in the second place. South Korea as the world’s ninth oil importer consumes almost as much as the entire oil production of oil exporting countries such as Kuwait, UAE or Venezuela. Supply diversification policies has already met their limits for the region as the African and Russian oil productions have provided nothing but a small portion of the Asia-Pacific’s ever-increasing energy needs and therefore the region’s dependence to Middle East oil exports has been increasing rapidly and constantly.