“The big story is productivity in China,” he asserts, noting it is an incredible 9%, or three times the level of productivity in the US during its 1990s peak. Admiral Owens attributes this to the country’s high-quality infrastructure. It will allow the Chinese economy to soon become the second-largest in the world, with a GDP big enough to justify comparison with the US.
That in turn means demand for energy will see oil prices reach $400 a barrel by 2018, he argues. This is not only because of demand in China, India and elsewhere, but because of the nationalisation of oil fields in countries such as Russia, Venezuela and in the Caucasus. And energy efficiency in China is not very high.
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