Arab Oil, in the sixth world. Options

[Snow_Fox]

since you can make oil from coal, at around $10 a barrel. you could also see there being refineries for the apalachians in CAS, UCAS, Wales and China

[Tiger Eyes]

You know, there's some good oil reserves in the Niger Delta... which just happens to be fairly close to Lagos... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Nath]

There were only five major corporations described in the Middle East, and none of them was into oil exploitation, at least until the Standstorm Engineering Consortium merged with Global Oil (which was an American corp as far as I understood) to become the first arabic AA. Arabian Futures Industries is in high-tech developements, Ifrit Services, Xenel-Oman and the Islamic Development Cooperative Bank dwell in finance with side interests in tourism, entertainment and security (Ifrit) and microtronics (Xenel-Oman).

With Global Sandstorm, United Oil, Exxoco, Total-Elf and other still around, and considering Saeder-Krupp profile, I'd expect Lofwyr domination over the mid-eastern oil industry to come from oil field services rather than oil production (though Fatima Petrochemicals still does some). IE, Saeder-Krupp would replace Halliburton and Schlumberger (the later would be a good pick for S-K, having an European base).

The old NAN sourcebook volume 2 explained oil price got high enough, and techology mature enough to allow exploitation of Athabasca tar sands. The first condition got true IRL some times ago. It was saying transsport oil dependance was reduced, while the plastics industry was still waiting for silicon-based equivalents that could come out in the coming decade (and since the NAN SB year was 2052, they should be out).

[Snow_Fox]

the Canadian oil sands is being exploited right now. the region is a frekaing boom town and has benefited with the jump on RL oil prices while not having any of the BS of violence in the middle east or storms in the gulf.

[CanRay]

Just regular, ordinary, everyday Canadian Violence. But, being Canadian, we apologise after the bar brawl. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Synner667]

I think by 2070 in the Shadowrun setting, you'd have some great city-states such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi whose primary industry would be finance, possibly research also, maybe some outsourced management work, but that they'd be shining jewels in the desert and there would be a great deal of uncivilised land around them. At least the image of a desert riddled with nomadic arab elves and dragons half-buried in the sand and waiting, with the gleaming silver towers of Doha (Qatar's capital) ever shining on the horizon like a mirage of the the lost city of Erum, is a powerful image.

Aren't they actually designing and building a large, solar powered super city somewhere in Arabia ??

Would there be other resources or industries that would be built up in Southwest Asia in the 2070s? Dubai has the world's largest hotel (the world's only 5-star). So, would tourism be a bigger draw for the region?

I think you'll find it's a 7 star hotel.