Publications

Projecting Saudi Arabia’s CO2 Dynamic Baselines to 2060: A Multivariate Approach

The Energy Journal

Using an econometric model, we generate scenario projections of CO2 emissions under different sets of assumptions on the underlying drivers. These drivers include GDP, the energy price, economic structure, and the underlying emissions trend. Our baseline scenario projects that Saudi…

Abdulelah Darandary, Anwar Gasim, Lester C. Hunt, Jeyhun Mikayilov

How Can Bilateral Contracts Support Electricity Trade? A Regional Electricity Model Perspective for the GCC Plus Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq

Marie Petitet, Benjamin Ricaud, Frank Felder, Amro Elshurafa

Cross-border electricity trading in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) can provide cost and environmental benefits. However, for historical reasons, electricity trading has not reached a mature stage in this region. Based on a bespoke economic dispatch model for…

Marie Petitet

Benjamin Ricaud

Felder, Frank

Elshurafa, Amro

Impacts of Regional Electricity Demand in Saudi Arabia A Study of the Government Sector

Jeyhun Mikayilov, Abeer AlGhamdi

This research presents a comprehensive analysis of electricity demand factors in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the government sector across different regions. The findings of the paper are summarized as follows:The findings show that income significantly impacts government sector electricity demand…

Mikayilov, Jeyhun

AlGhamdi, Abeer

Energy Transition in Oil-Dependent Economies: Public Discount Rates for Investment Project Evaluation

Fatih Karanfil, Axel Pierru

The selection of welfare-enhancing projects necessitates the determination of the present value of cash flows from a public policy perspective. For an oil-exporting economy, the domestic energy transition often implies displacing oil from domestic consumption. Economic dependence on oil affects…

Karanfil, Fatih

Pierru, Axel

Closing the Efficiency Gap: Insights into curbing the direct rebound effect of residential electricity consumption in Saudi Arabia

Science Direct

Fateh Belaïd, Jeyhun Mikayilov

Resilience of Saudi Arabia’s Economy to Oil Shocks: Effects of Economic Reforms

Sage Journals

We assess the extent to which the implementation of Vision 2030 policies enhances the Saudi economy’s resilience to oil shocks. Using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that captures the country’s economic diversification policies, we build a resilience index based…

Hossa Almutairi, Axel Pierru, Baltasar Manzano, Marzio Galeotti

Managing the Oil Market Under Misinformation: A Reasonable Quest?

Hossa Almutairi, Axel Pierru, James L. Smith

This paper examines the type and quality of information that OPEC needs to stabilize the oil market. We extend our previous structural model, in which OPEC makes potential mistakes in judging the size of market shocks, to now include the…

Almutairi, Hossa

Pierru, Axel

James L. Smith

Critical Minerals in the Energy Transition: Exploring Prospects and Addressing Hurdles

The worldwide endeavor to achieve a low-carbon, sustainable economic future via energy transition technologies emphasizes the significant need for minerals and materials. Over the past few years, the surge in the strictness of the energy sector’s requirements has led to…

How the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act Supports Energy Efficiency and Low-Carbon Buildings

Fateh Belaïd, Mahelet G. Fikru

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) recognizes that buildings account for a significant share of U.S. energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. To address this issue, the IRA includes a range of policies and programs to make energy efficiency and…

Belaïd, Fateh

Mahelet G. Fikru

Toward Just Transitions in the MENA Region: Insights from the 2022 Circular Carbon Economy Index

Fatih Yılmaz, Mari Luomi, Laura El-Katiri

In recent years, it has become increasingly evident that any major effort to reduce emissions will require a whole-of-society approach that brings along people equally within and across countries. As a sign of this notion entering the “mainstream” of global…

Yılmaz, Fatih

Luomi, Mari

Laura El-Katiri

The New Oil Market Multiverse: Physical Commodity Swaps as Instruments for Circumventing Sanctions and Their Implications for the Global Economy

Majed A. Al Suwailem, David Soud

From the global pandemic to the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the past few years have witnessed a reordering of global trade flows, most dramatically in the energy sector. Less obviously, these shifts have also…

Al Suwailem, Majed A.

David Soud

European Gas Supply Diversification: What Is the Role of Middle Eastern and African Liquefied Natural Gas?

Sid Ahmed Hamdani, Rami Shabaneh

This paper investigates the role of the Middle East and Africa (MEA) in supplying liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe in the context of sustained Russian gas pipeline disruptions. A linear programming optimization model, Nexant’s World Gas Model (March 2023…

Hamdani, Sid Ahmed

Shabaneh, Rami

Forecasting Saudi Arabia’s Non-Oil GDP Using a Bayesian Mixed Frequency VAR

Jeremy Rothfield, Mansour Al Rajhi

Bayesian vector autoregressions have been used by central banks to prepare short-term projections of quarterly GDP and other macroeconomic variables (Dieppe et al. 2016; Schorfheide and Song 2015). The Bayesian approach offers the advantage that a researcher can use a…

Jeremy Rothfield

Mansour Al Rajhi

KAPSARC Oil Market Outlook

This quarter’s highlights include an oil demand quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth of 940 Kb/d following last quarter’s declines. While the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries witnessed a QoQ decline of roughly 700 thousand barrels per day (Kb/d) last…

Smart Energy-Saving Technologies and Their Potential Application in Buildings Lessons for Saudi Arabia

Fateh Belaïd, Fatimah Alsunbul, Mohammad Aldubyan

The increasing demand for energy in our modern world has led to a critical need to conserve energy resources. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) predicts that under the 1.5°C scenario, electricity will be the primary energy carrier in the…

Belaïd, Fateh

Fatimah Alsunbul

Aldubyan, Mohammad

Energy-from-Waste (Ef W) with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in Saudi Arabia

Naser Odeh

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies, such as direct air capture (DAC) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), are essential for Saudi Arabia to achieve net zero by 2060. It is estimated that approximately 250–371 Mt/y of CDR will…

Naser Odeh

The Contribution of Energy to Economic Growth and Convergence

Nader AlKathiri, Abdulelah Darandary

Using a sample of 94 countries, we analyze the contribution of energy to cross-country economic growth and convergence since 1980. By extending the traditional frontier approach to include energy as an additional factor of production, we decompose economic growth into…

AlKathiri, Nader

Darandary, Abdulelah

Projecting Global Oil Demand for the Buildings Sector

Fateh Belaïd, Mohammad Aldubyan

As one of the largest consumers of energy resources, the building sector plays a key role in the evolution of the global energy landscape. Buildings account for approximately one-third of the world’s final energy consumption. This methodology paper aims to provide…

Belaïd, Fateh

Aldubyan, Mohammad

Decoding the Behavioral Patterns in Saudi Arabia from GASTAT’s Five-Year Household Energy Statistics Survey

Abdulelah Darandary, Fateh Belaïd

This commentary presents the findings of the annual Energy Statistics Survey by the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), an ongoing initiative since 2017 that is now in its fifth iteration, which covers 2022. The survey encompasses hundreds of responses from…

Darandary, Abdulelah

Belaïd, Fateh

Assessment of the Potential of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines in the Red Sea

Ahmed Al-Balawi, Nora Nezamuddin, Frank Felder, Abdelrahman Muhsen, Amro Elshurafa

Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) have recently gained traction and are being installed in several regions of Europe and Asia. These turbines use the same technology as typical offshore wind turbines but are not directly anchored to the seabed. Instead,…

Ahmed Al-Balawi

Nezamuddin, Nora

Felder, Frank

Muhsen, Abdelrahman

Elshurafa, Amro