WITH IRANIAN OIL COMING ON-LINE:

During the most recent energy boom, the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council - including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait - amassed sovereign funds worth more than $2.3 trillion. These assets have traditionally comprised a mix of debt and other securities, in addition to influential stakes in some of the world's biggest companies such as Glencore, VW and Barclays.

Large chunks of this cash are now being repatriated back to the region to finance widening budget deficits, which this year are expected to be in the region of 13 percent of GDP in the GCC. Should oil prices average $56 per barrel next year, then GCC states would need to liquidate some $208 billion of their overseas assets, or just below 10 percent of their sovereign fund holdings, based on a Breakingviews analysis of their fiscal break-even costs.

But if oil prices fall to $20 a barrel, as Goldman Sachs has warned, the GCC states may have to sell $494 billion worth of booty to make up the budgetary shortfalls based on forecast fiscal costs for their oil production in 2016. This is provided they maintain the lavish rates of public spending that the region's populations have become accustomed to.

At that rate of divestment these sheikhdoms - which pump about a fifth of the world's oil - would almost drain their funds entirely by 2020.

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