Last Tuesday, I told Taipan Publishing Group subscribers in Taipan Insider that one Middle Eastern country was injecting massive amounts of cash into international markets.

That’s not really news nowadays, though, is it? Everyone’s heard of the $7.5 billion Citigroup bailout by Abu Dhabi back in November 2007.

But things have noticably been slowing down. When billions of dollars worth of investments get halved in value in less than a year, it makes you think.

Yet for some regions, this credit crunch is an opportunity of a lifetime.

Think about it. You’re an oil-rich nation with foreign currency reserves well into the hundreds of billions. Major global institutions are searching desparately for cash. Their fellow financial institutions are equally cash-strapped.

Suddenly, your country has a lot of power.

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Ever see that show on The Learning Channel called Trading Spaces? It has two neighbors swap houses for a couple days to remodel each other’s rooms. There have been some surprising results, from an all black room (which was not what the owners had in mind) to wonderfully tasteful decor.

That’s why it’ll be interesting when two countries swap sectors: the UK could be the next oil frontier and Dubai could be the next major hotel owner in Europe.

Let’s start with the more unusual of the two…

The UK has been beholden to imported natural gas since 2004, and could be a net importer of oil by 2010 once the North Sea reserves really begin to run dry. North Sea oil accounts for 98.5% of UK production. Onshore oil fields produce only 24,000 barrels of oil a day.

To give you an idea of just how little that amount is, 24,000 barrels of oil is less than two-minute’s worth of U.S. oil consumption.

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Hey, Irwin…

Looks like the world is becoming more focused on frontier markets in Africa and the Middle East. Several new ETFs have popped up, making access to these markets so much easier for US investors.

They are Vectors Gulf States ETF (MES:NYSE), the Market Vectors Africa ETF (AFK:NYSE), the PowerShares MENA Frontier Countries ETF (PMNA:Nasdaq) and Claymore’s Frontier Markets ETF (FRN:NYSE). (Note: The FRN includes investments in a number of other frontier markets, including Latin American and Eastern European countries.)

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