The opportunity cost of domestic oil consumption for an oil exporter: Illustration for Saudi Arabia

We develop a partial equilibrium framework to assess the opportunity cost of domestic oil consumption for an oil-exporting country. We show that the opportunity cost depends on various factors, including the constraints to which the oil producer is subject and the domestic oil pricing scheme. Moreover, through an application of the envelope theorem, we assess net welfare gains that can be generated from a reform of the domestic oil price. Our results show that the most efficient pricing policy is to set the domestic price equal to the opportunity cost. A numerical illustration for Saudi Arabia is provided to demonstrate the practical value of the proposed framework. Our findings can inform public decision-making for projects and policies that impact oil demand. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

The study develops a partial equilibrium framework to assess the opportunity cost of domestic oil consumption for an oil-exporting country, finding that the most efficient pricing policy is to set the domestic price equal to the opportunity cost, and evaluates the net welfare gains from reforming domestic oil pricing. A numerical illustration for Saudi Arabia is provided to demonstrate the practical value of the proposed framework.