Most Powerful Petro States: Gulf States (GCC) vs. The World

In this video, we explore the Gulf Cooperation Council—the GCC—6 nations that reside on some of the most valuable land on earth—the Arabian Peninsula. Surrounded on all sides by conflict, the countries of the GCC manage to exist in relative peace and stability. Long aligned with the global hegemon—the United States of America—these gulf monarchies have managed to convert the vast oil and gas reserves that lie beneath their sands into tremendous wealth and global influence. Most of their neighbors, in contrast, weren’t so lucky.
We’ll also compare the gulf petro-kingdoms with 9 other petrostates scattered across four continents in order to quantitatively rank these countries and find out—who is the strongest petrostate?

Economic indicators for the ranking include: GDP, population, GDP per capita, GDP growth stability, political stability, military strength (Global Firepower Rank), Natural Resource Rents (NRR) as a percentage of GDP, human development index (HDI), life expectancy at birth, and oil and gas production. The countries include the GCC nations (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait) along with Norway, Russia, Algeria, Nigeria, Brazil, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, and Azerbaijan.