You have probably seen the poster of the boy playing with a model dhow in pristine waters of the Gulf. Abu Dhabi's new branding initiative is designed to portray the Emirate as a clean, sophisticated, enchanting Islamic destination where tourists and businessmen are welcome. The posters are on view in the airport, on hoardings and in hotels. But haven't these image makers left something out? What about Abu Dhabi's pre-eminent export that already boasts an impressive global reach - its exports of crude oil?
The truth is they have probably ignored them on purpose. Western oil companies have long held the view that crude is not their most valuable asset when it comes to image making. Adverts for Shell, for example, more often portray open oceans and concerned staff expressing an interest in ecology than a drill-bit or tanker. Esso has a tiger in its tank. And BP actively sought to move away from oil with its "Beyond Petroleum" campaign.
Kuwait is one exception. Its national oil company runs a network of 4,000 service stations across Europe branded with the "Q8" logo. But as a rule, oil exporters allow retailers in consumer countries to establish brands for fuels, and accept the popular image of their crude oil as a necessary evil, at best. Newsweek, the American weekly magazine, captured oil's image problem for the Middle East in a recent front-page story where Christopher Dickey, its Middle East correspondent, suggested that Gulf nations were trying to create paradise on earth with buildings like the Emirates Palace, because the origin of their wealth "carries more than a whiff of hellfire and brimstone".
Oil producing nations appear to accept the negative brand value that comes with their oil resources, but this does not come without a cost. Allowing others to define you means you have no control over your public image, nor can you manage perceptions over time. So, recent increases in the cost of crude have prompted many interest groups in the West, particularly in the US, to vilify their oil suppliers.
And if Arab oil exporters are not to blame for prices that are, after all, determined on futures markets in the West, they are demonised for preventing free access to their resources by western capitalists. This hostility is fuelled by the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and perceptions that money from exporting oil is used to finance violence against America. T Boone Pickens, the Texan businessman who made billions of dollars from oil but is now promoting a huge wind farm in his home state, exploited these associations in testimony to the Senate last month. "We are paying for a war against ourselves and we have got to stop it," he said.
Developing alternatives to oil is increasingly seen as a patriotic duty in the West, and this will undermine the long-term viability of the petroleum era. Embracing the theory of peak oil - and the prediction of an imminent collapse in global production - has become an ideology for those in fear of their energy security. Even oil exporters recognise the need to develop alternatives to petroleum, and Abu Dhabi is investing in just that. But the level of hostility towards the Middle East and its primary export is both unwelcome and inefficient. Xenophobia is easily camouflaged by economic scare stories and national security, while concerns over the level of oil imports could could lead to a poor allocation of resources and lower standards of living.
The crisis over climate change and carbon emissions shows that oil is a victim of its own success. The West needs to learn how to use these resources more efficiently, reducing waste and mitigating emissions with new technology in carbon capture and recycling. But crude oil remains an amazing natural wonder. What might branded Abu Dhabi oil look like? Murban and Zakum, the emirate's top sellers, could be sold as the finest "single origin" crudes in the world. They are costly because they are light in gravity and contain a high proportion of the most valued fuels such as petrol, diesel and jet fuel. "Reassuringly expensive", perhaps?
Uniquely for the Gulf, Abu Dhabi's crude is produced in association with some of the top names in European, American and Asian energy companies. And the revenue from Abu Dhabi's oil is better managed than almost any other major exporter, barring perhaps Norway, as evidenced by its growing stock of sovereign wealth.
Branding Abu Dhabi's oil might not make Abu Dhabi too many friends among fellow producers in the region, who may not benefit from such comparisons, but perhaps someone ought to come to the defence of the nation's economic mainstay. @Email:tashby@thenational.ae