When President Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia in mid-May to plead for an increase in oil production, his friend King Abdullah resisted him.

But the best the Saudi monarch could do would be an additional 300,000 barrels a day, raising total output to 9.45 million barrels a day.

Now, however, the Saudis have improved their offer. In response to appeals from UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and others, the kingdom has signaled its willingness to open the spigots wider, by 200,000 barrels a day above what it promised Mr. Bush.

After months of blaming the spike in oil prices on speculators, the Saudis have finally admitted, tacitly, to be sure, that the root cause is insufficient supply. Why the shift in Riyadh? The Saudis have finally begun to worry that runaway oil prices are not in their long-term interest. For them, the best of all possible worlds is one in which oil costs enough to ensure them a steady flow of huge profits but not so much that consumers switch to alternatives.

But in the six months that ended April 30, Americans drove 30 billion fewer miles than in the same period during 2006-07, the Transportation Department said. Toyota’s first hydrogen-powered car just rolled off an assembly line in Japan. If this keeps up, the world will no longer be addicted to oil.

The question, though, is whether it is still within the Saudis’ power to bring oil prices down dramatically. With 260 billion barrels of proven reserves—a quarter of the world’s total—and an estimated productive capacity of 11 million barrels a day, they remain the likeliest source of fresh supply.

But even an additional 500,000 barrels a day is only about half the increase in global consumption last year, almost all of which occurred in Asia. And it will take years for the Saudis to raise their productive capacity even higher, as they say they want to do.

Some energy experts think the legendary Saudi fields are far closer to being tapped out than the secretive kingdom admits. Matthew R. Simmons, an investment banker specializing in energy, has published a much-discussed paper suggesting that Saudi oil production is already near its physical limits—a conclusion the Saudis vigorously dispute.

In the future, Riyadh might no longer be the place Western leaders come, hats in hands, to plead for cheaper oil—and to offer gifts in return that range from indulgence of Saudi human-rights violations to arms sales to military protection. No wonder the Saudis might be counting their windfall profits with one hand but fingering their worry beads with the other. (The Washington Post)

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Outside the Box: We do not ‘need’ foreign investment

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Mirror on the wall: What happened to Nograles’s move to abolish VAT on power consumption?

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Sen. Edgardo J. Angara: Stopping urban slums through rural development

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Philip M. Lustre Jr.: The tragedy of local officials

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The Saudi spigot

When President Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia in mid-May to plead for an increase in oil production, his friend King Abdullah resisted him.