A year of record-breaking oil prices could earn the world's top exporters $700 billion and give them the confidence to build the foundation for decades of economic growth.
Oil's four-year demand-driven rally has boosted prices from $20 a barrel to well beyond $70, leaving major producers, who supply 40 per cent of the world's traded crude, more certain of a long-lasting bull market.
"Before, these countries were far more cautious because they were worried the oil boom would not last," said Monica Malik of Standard Chartered bank in Dubai.
"But now you see more confidence - and especially from 2005 there has been an acceleration in the spending of these governments."
But unlike the 1970s oil boom, which saw fortunes frittered away and US treasuries the asset of choice, producers now are paying down debts, spending massively on infrastructure projects and diversifying their portfolios to include Asia and Europe.
Top exporter Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab neighbours may earn more than $300 billion in petrodollars this year, enough to buy a firm the size of Exxon Mobil.
Riyadh alone is headed for a record $203 billion, according to Samba Financial Group, up from $162 billion in 2005 - a rise of 25 per cent.
A similar rise, also applied to the other top 10 exporters, produced a Reuters estimate of some $700 billion in total earnings for 2006.
To help ensure economic growth and create jobs, these Gulf Opec producers are spending vast amounts on projects such as road networks, shopping malls and petrochemical complexes.
Samba reckons Saudi Arabia looks to set to have 37 major projects worth $283 billion on the go over the next few years. Oil and gas projects dominate with investment of $69 billion. Defence and security spending totals $48.8 billion.
"We still believe this boom is only beginning," said Brad Bourland, Samba's chief economist.
The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are also doing their bit to reduce global imbalances by recycling their petrodollars. They are still ploughing cash into US treasuries and banks, but are also buying up property around the globe.
"Now you find that Gulf countries are actually buying companies themselves rather than just placing money in banks," said Malik. "This is less so for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia than the UAE, but they have different diversification strategies."
Outside the Arab Gulf, independent producers Norway and Russia - the world's third and second biggest exporters - are ensuring their oil windfall is well spent.
Prosperous Norway, long regarded as the most enlightened spender of oil wealth, will use only a fraction of its bonanza to plug budget deficits and invest the rest in foreign stocks and bonds in a pension fund worth more than $236 billion.
Russia will tap its cash pile, in the form of a $77 billion oil stabilisation fund, to make a $22 billion payment to the Paris Club that settles the entire Soviet-era debt.
Many producers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have also been paying off their debts, but they could still be storing up problems for the future with unsustainable fuel subsidies and social spending.
"Venezuela has real problems because the money is being used on a lot of grandiose projects that are of perhaps more political benefit to President Hugo Chavez than to the people," said Julian Lee of the Centre for Global Energy Studies.
"That is a very questionable use of resources." Critics have also faulted Iran's government, which draws support from the poor, for using a big chunk of oil cash to raise public-sector wages and subsidise gasoline prices to keep domestic discontent under control.
African Opec producer Nigeria also spends a huge amount of money on fuel subsidies and President Olusegun Obasanjo has pledged to keep the price at the pump steady until the year-end.
"There has certainly been debt repayment in Nigeria," said Lee. "But there doesn't seem to be much money going to the population in the Niger Delta, which makes one wonder where on earth it is going."
In North Africa, Algeria - emerging from years of Islamist-linked violence - is using its windfall to carry out an $80 billion economic revival plan to boost growth and reduce unemployment. It is also speeding plans to cut foreign debt.