Nobody the world over would argue with the notion that energy and politics are inextricably linked. Whether it’s the issue of foreign oil and the role it plays in the US and in shaping its military interventions globally, the massive growth of coal-fired power generation in China in the context of growing climate concerns, or even South Africa’s own debates about technologies such as hydraulic fracturing, nuclear or oil refining, there is no escaping some of the intractable positions and ideologies that surround the conversations.

But what happens to those political positions should there be a material shift in the nature of the underlying dynamics that shape a country’s energy politics, particularly when that country is a superpower?

That’s precisely what energy group BP is forecasting in its ‘Energy Outlook 2030’ – a document released earlier in the year and presented to a South African audience by chief economist Christof Ruehl earlier this month.

The study notes that oil imports to the US have already dropped by about one-third since peaking in 2005 and that they are likely to be half today’s level by 2030 – the US currently produces more than 50% of the liquid fuel it uses.

In other words, the US’s import dependence could well be poised to decline dramatically. In fact, Ruehl believes that over the next 20 years, the imported share of oil demand, as well as the volume of oil imports, in the US will fall below 1990s levels. This shift will be driven largely by rising domestic shale-oil production and by ethanol displacing crude imports. The US, which already exports coal, will also become a net exporter of natural gas, owing to its development of the shale-gas industry.

By contrast, the study suggests that China and India will be the world’s largest and third-largest economies and energy consumers by 2030, jointly accounting for about 35% of global population, gross domestic product and energy demand.

In China, imports of oil and natural gas, BP believes, will rise sharply as demand growth outpaces domestic supply, while India will increasingly have to rely on imports of oil, coal and natural gas.

Now this surely has major geopolitical implications. Many still discount the fact that the US will continue to play a major political (and military) role in Middle East, owing precisely to its reliance on foreign oil. But what if that reliance is markedly reduced?

If China is indeed importing 80% of its oil requirement and 40% of its gas requirement (higher than any peak import ratio in the US), what will it mean for how the country behaves to safeguard its energy-security interests?

While reality is likely to turn out to be somewhat different from the scenarios sketched above, it is nonetheless illustrative of the fundamental power and geopolitical shifts that we are likely to be confronted with in the coming years. Whether South Africa is truly ready for the implications is not immediately clear.