U.S. Oil and Gasoline Import Statistics
Posted by Robert Rapier on April 25, 2008 - 10:01am
I actually started on this post about a year ago, and forgot about it until recently. Here I provide 2007 numbers on the sources for oil and gasoline imports into the U.S., courtesy of the Energy Information Administration.
For 2007, the Top 10 exporters of finished gasoline to the U.S. in million barrels were:
1. United Kingdom 25.147 million barrels (total for the year)
2. U.S. Virgin Islands 23.590
3. France 11.209
4. Canada 10.605
5. Netherlands 10.518
6. Norway 8.406
7. Germany 8.351
8. Russia 7.387
9. Italy 7.239
10. OPEC Countries 5.516
Source: U.S. Imports by Country of Origin
Europeans have a higher per capita demand for diesel. Since you get diesel and gasoline from the refining process, they can get rid of their excess gasoline by sending it to the U.S. That helps keep gasoline prices in check, but obviously does nothing for diesel prices. Take a look at recent diesel prices to see what gasoline prices might look like if not for the imports.
For 2007, our Top 10 exporters of crude oil to the U.S. in million barrels were:
1. Canada 680.533 million barrels (total for the year)
2. Saudi Arabia 530.245
3. Mexico 514.48
4. Venezuela 419.841
5. Nigeria 394.856
6. Angola 181.215
7. Iraq 177.009
8. Algeria 161.755
9. Ecuador 72.138
10. Kuwait 64.306
Source: U.S. Crude Imports by Country of Origin
If you compare to the list for gasoline imports, Canada is the only country common to both lists (although "OPEC Countries" in total came in at #10 on the gasoline list). Any surprises on that list? I am surprised to see Ecuador in the Top 10. I would have thought Brazil would have come in higher than Ecuador (Brazil was 11th). Also note that Mexico and Saudia Arabia swapped places in 2007 - and this situation is likely to be permanent.
Total OPEC imports in 2007 were 1.97 billion barrels. Total non-OPEC imports were 1.69 billion barrels. Consider how dependent we are on oil, how oil prices have run up, and the resulting massive transfer of wealth out of the U.S. and into other countries.
This is a big reason that I am pessimistic about the U.S. economy recovering any time soon. A lot of discretionary income is disappearing from American pockets and ending up flowing into the hands of oil exporters. An obvious solution is to do more business with these oil producers, and offer them something of value that will pull more of that money back. I am also basing many of my personal finance decisions based on the premise that this trend will continue.
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How about the usual ... offer a deal they can't refuse.
Slightly more seriously, do you have an idea what that would work out to in Dollars or % increase in GDP? How much sweat offsets that much oil?
On the side, your statement: I am also basing many of my personal finance decisions based on the premise that this trend will continue. ... Hokay, so where does the smart money go? Hope you have something more interesting than, "under the mattress", though I think that is not a bad idea right now:)
Over the past few years, I have been moving money into several directions. Among them are energy related stocks, and countries whose export situation looks pretty good.
For those of us that have put money into energy a few years ago a bad blip or two along the way would be okay but what do you think of someone jumping in right now. Myself the only spot I would think about at this moment is nuclear as it looks a very neglected spot, I hate crowds, love the wide open spaces and sing about that in the bath . Now there also is an area I would be intrested in putting a bit of doh rey mi into and think Woody would too... land... now that could be good ... raise a cactus or two, do a bit of rustling by moonlight, my gal Sal by my side holding a bucket of 'Old Paint' while I roll a Louis Special cigar. Mmmm mmmm life can be grand!
Ooh Gee, and right now on my TV portal there is President Bush putting, of all things Money into the hands of the people... did I say "life can be grand" golly I think I must have meant Stupidendous.
Robert:
My name is Greg Jeffers, I write the:
americanenergycrisis.blogspot.com blog. Could you send me an email? I would like to communicate some data to you.
But isn't all of this subject to change, based on ELM? My understanding of peak oil is that when fuel becomes more scarce, goods won't be traded around as much. Sure, this is bad news for the US economy and the global economy as well. Your local economy is what you'll always be a part of, for better or for worse, so that's what I suggest focusing on.
Wealth transfer is largely ignored in the ethanol debate. This is no small matter.
Those who reject biofuels will find their economies constantly being drained of economic wealth to pay for energy unless they switch to solar/wind or some such. They will have to be very good at using the energy they import to make enough economic gain to keep it up.
It will not be easy to do since they must compete with all the other energy importers who are trying to do the same thing. In a declining economic environment brought on by Peak Oil it may get harder and harder to pull off.
This is also the situation within the the United States as well. States that can produce their own energy, whether from fossil fuels or from biofuels, will have an easier time than those who do not. Non producing states will find that wealth is being transferred to energy producers.
One reason the USA rose to be the dominant force in the world was its vast energy resources that were instrumental in the outcome of World War II for example.
In the past energy producers like Texas have become the dominant force in the country. I believe that is a main reason why we have had 3 Presidents from Texas in the last 45 years: Johnson, Bush and Bush II. They have helped set the agenda to favor oil in one way or another including even wars for oil in two cases.
In the future it might be that biofuel states will rise to be a more powerful force as oil becomes ever more expensive. States who reject ethanol will find their economies weakened by the outflow of economic gain to pay for energy compared to those who ebrace it.
This is already happening in Iowa. Locally Winnebago Industries is faltering, but the biofuel economy is saving the day.
Those states that I see declining are not the oil producers like Texas, but the now financially and culturally powerful like California, Florida and New York.
Biofuel is but a blip in the gasoline supply...and if it continues to come from corn and rice we will continue to see the disastrous results
Both California and Florida are solar power resource rich and both have climes suitable for 265 day cultivation.
Sure, energy-producing states may have greater wealth than a similar, energy-importing state. But your statement about presidents doesn't follow. Perhaps it's just coincidence, or because Texas is a big state.
My memory of the 1988 election isn't that good, but Bush II didn't explicitly campaign on an oil agenda in 2000. And Johnson became president because Kennedy was shot.
Several recent presidents have come from cotton-producing states. Should we attribute their victories to that?
Wow, I finally met someone else that is pro ethanol? I am a corn farmer from nw Ohio and no doubt benefiting from ethanol. I agree with most that ethanol doesn't solve the energy problem as discussed on this forum. But minus the subsidies and mandates if ethanol can stand on its own, profit wise, then more power to it. Would not this be a way for modern agriculture to continue to function when the peak oil crisis arrives? Use part of our own acres to grow bio-diesel to run our tractors and combines and still be profitable. Maybe I am not thinking of everything, or I am missing something.
Wow, I finally met someone else that is pro ethanol? I am a corn farmer...
So is the guy you were responding to. It shouldn't be surprising that corn farmers are pro-ethanol, as they are the ones benefiting the most from it. But what do you say to people like my dad - a cattle rancher - who has money flowing out of his pocket and into yours? I am all for farmers making a good living, but make no mistake that it's coming at the expense of a lot of other people who are also working hard to make a living.
But minus the subsidies and mandates if ethanol can stand on its own, profit wise, then more power to it.
Do you honestly believe that it can? A subsidy alone couldn't do it, so they slapped a mandate on top of that. Why is a subsidy even needed when a mandate is there? (Hint: To hide the true cost of production).
Funny thing to me is that the corn lobby likes to say that ethanol mandates aren't responsible for high corn prices: It's those darn fossil fuel prices. Makes one wonder then how renewable ethanol actually is when fossil fuel prices have such a large impact on the industry. Eh?
You forgot something.... the TARIFF!
So, in order to get ethanol production in the US from corn, the US by law of Congress:
1) Mandates use;
2) Subsidizes blenders;
3) Applies tariffs to keep out lower cost imports.
Even with all of this, the actual impact upon the need for the US to import oil and finished product is difficult to detect in the actual data.
Robert,
When it comes college educated your far smarter than me. But why the cynical attitude?
Ethanol infrastructure wasn't built so subsidies and mandates were needed to get it going.
Hog farmer here also! Actually losing $30 to $40 a head right now. Hog market will eventually rise to fix that. THEN, consumers can say ethanol is driving up food prices!!!! Can't say it right now! Sorry, I don't care what the mainstream press says. I wish you smart people here would look into also instead of just listening to sound bites and sucking it all in!
Big oil got its subsidies just like ethanol is now. I am all for removing all subsidies and mandates over say a two year period and then see if ethanol stands on its own!!!!!
Yes, I believe it can.
Yes ethanol is responsible for hi corn,soybean,wheat,prices directly. But ethanol isn't responsible for food shortages or food crises currently!
It's all about money creation worldwide.
Also Robert, I would appreciate your thoughts on the following post I made to another web sites talk forum.
"Not sure how to word this. But, by using corn for fuel, is it any different than when they used so many acres per farm to feed horses to do the transporting and work on the farm? I have always been of the opinion that ethanol will not be a solution to an energy crises for the masses. Nor will it solve the peak oil problem to come.
But shouldn't modern agriculture be able to function ok even with energy shortages and peak oil problems in the future, by using our own bio-fuels, perhaps even bio-diesel processed on our own farms. Not smart enough to know these things for sure! Any comments?"
I have a friend that is benefitting from the ethanol boom in that his company makes components for the plants. He is not a believer in the economic viability of it in the current arrangement - ethanol plants burning huge amounts of nat. gas and the subsidy of $0.51 per gallon. However, in the situation where the ethanol plants can use waste heat from a power plant in the fermentation and distillation processes, the net energy (EROEI) can be made much better. Go from 1.25 to 3.0 or more. With greater net energy output the subsidy would not be needed. Right now with natural gas at $10.40 per million BTU I doubt many plants could be run at a profit sans subsidy.
The best case for supplying transportation fuel from crops is biodiesel from canola and other oil seed crops. Soybeans are priced too high in the world market for use in making biodiesel. Jatropha trees are very good producers of oil seed because they need such little water and NPK fertilizer compared to most crops. Problem with Jatropha is the warm climate as the trees are indiginous to the Southwest US and Mexico/Central America. I have heard 300 gallons per acre per year with Jatropha that has almost no imputs (irrigation or cultivation or fertilizer). Not sure what the pest problems might be.
My preference is for farm land to be used for food crops plus any fuel crops to aid farm production & crop transportation (hopefully by railroads). Energy for the automobile driver should come from solar/wind/hydro/tidal/etc. And if that is very expensive then people will have to use electric powered railways built with government help - just as ethanol is subsidized. Other transport options will be too energy intensive per passenger and thus too costly. Better dump your airline stocks while they still have some residual value.
For the most part I agree with what you said. But, perhaps there will be a place for the most efficient corn ethanol plants.
http://reddit.com/info/6h3qe/comments/ (worldnews)
http://reddit.com/info/6h3o7/comments/ (business)
http://digg.com/business_finance/U_S_Oil_and_Gasoline_Import_Statistics_...
If this strike in the UK grows teeth wouldn't we likely lose that almost 70k bbl/day from them, plus perhaps more from the other European sources as the UK tries to import it's losses?
Seems that could put a real dent in inventories heading into the summer if the strike were to last several weeks.
I would have thought that the current round of MEND activity/strike action in Nigeria - one force majeure of at least 5 million barrels alone - is far more serious for US inventories than the short-term outage of relatively small quantities of gasoline from the UK/Europe.
Well, yeah that too for sure. But I was thinking finished product inventory, which Robert has pointed out the US leans on pretty hard nowadays.
The crude glitches could certainly make it more difficult for the US refineries to run up utilization rates, at the current crack spreads at any rate. $150 on the near horizon? $5-6/gal instead of $4 this summer? Starting to look really likely...
I could see a diversion of perhaps 500kb ( equivalent to 1/2 day's or so worth of imports ) of products being diverted from the US back to the UK.
This is an order of magnitude less than the force majeure due to the pipeline bombing alone. The US imports a cool million barrels of oil per day from Nigeria - so if the strike action that is being threatened there actually materialises, then the impacts from that will be much more serious.
Gas in the US at $4, oh my! Then again, look on the bright side: US gas prices, still waaaay cheaper than India ( really, someone should use that as a slogan ).
Heh-heh. Good slogan!
500k/day would put a real strain on US inventories if it were to go on for several weeks, and we would be hard pressed to make it up given the other "issues" floating around out there.
Ugh.
I was thinking of 500kb total of diverted exports to the US as a result of the stoppage, which would be equal to 9-10 day's worth of UK shipments.
Robert-
"For 2007, the Top 10 importers of finished gasoline into the U.S. in million barrels were:"
Small grammatical point-the countries listed are exporters, not importers. The US is importing from the exporting country.
Thanks for the lists.
Fixed, thanks.
I cannot tell you how many times I have screwed that up. Hell, I missed it when I was looking through it last night. Gah.
Thank you for these lists and comments regarding European liquids. These were interesting. However, do not underestimate the amazing stupidity of those in executive power right now.
Just one example from a Wall Street Journal Editorial (thanks for this!),
"In my view, the least bad option is for the Federal Reserve to print money to help stabilize housing prices and financial markets. Yes, use reflation to soften the pain for Main Street and Wall Street."
Check the URL @ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120813349057411671.html
This is the Long Emergency. Note that the futures market for natural gas has already doubled the price at delivery date.
The top ten send us 117.96 Million Barrels/Yr.
Ethanol will give us 214 Million Barrels this year.
While using a good deal of Canadian natural gas. I know you like to downplay that, but the fact is that the ethanol industry uses a lot of natural gas to make "renewable" ethanol.
That is, of course, True, Robert; but, the good news is we're getting more efficient at it. The new Argonne Labs Report affirms what I have been saying all along. Some of the new ethanol plants are getting up to 2.96 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn, and are getting to as low as 16,000 btus of nat gas and electricity per gallon.
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/objects/documents/1652/2007_analysis_of_the_ef...
It's a start, right?
A start in what direction though..do we give any credence to the divergent of corn and rice crops to filling our gas tanks to the issues of the food supply chain. What role did ethanol play in the current shortages being experienced?
I do not think ethanol played much of a role in the rice problem. Wish I had the data to show it.
We still have to distill the beer right? So the energy required to convert 12% ethanol into 100% ethanol is a fundamental physical constant. Sure they can get more efficient and the energy doesn't have to come from NG but there's a limit as to how little energy they have to use.
I'm pretty sure the plant that's showing 16,000 btus of elec/nat gas is Corn Plus, in Winnebago, Mn. They are gassifying their syrup by way of a fluidized bed reactor. They lose about 20% of their distillers grains, I believe; but they're saving about twelve, or thirteen thousand btus of nat gas. They, probably, also, come out with a better grade of ddgs. They, also, put up a couple of windmills to provide their electricity.
Other plants are instituting other biomass strategies. Some are beginning to extract the corn oil at the front of the process through fractionation, and some are looking at drying the corn through microwaving. The Poet Chancellorsburg refinery will get most of it's process heat from "waste" wood.
Lotsa good stuff in the works. It ain't your father's ethanol plant.
One could use a lot of focused solar radiation coupled with wind power electricity to distill the ethanol from 12% to 100%. Iowa has both in abundance during the day usually. This may not be as efficient, energy wise, as using NG or coal but it would reduce the fossil fuel use enormously which might be more efficient, dollar wise. The key is not only the amount of energy used but also the source. Reducing fossil fuel in all processes, not just the fuel tank, should be the goal.
I have not researched it, but I think the new generation ethanol plants are using fermentation and using a lot less natural gas.
Robert,
What's with propane these days, I've been using it for many years with a torch for weeding in my vegetable garden. The stuff I bought this year is pathetic. An anomaly or is the quality falling generally?
I suspect an anomaly. I don't know a good reason that propane quality should fall.
Ethanol will give you nothing because it has no net energy return. It's just a sweethart deal for the farming states.
RR wrote:
It's a technical point, but it makes a big difference: All money spent on imported oil makes its way back to the United States unless it is held overseas as reserves.
So, the US doesn't need to give oil exporters anything in exchange for the oil. It does, however, need to export something that is purchased by somebody who sells something to the oil exporters. Or, to carry the point further, it needs to export something to somebody who sells something to somebody who in turn sells something to the Arabs etc and on and on.
It's one of the myths floating around the peak oil community that the US has to give the oil nations something in exchange for their oil.
Nope. That is a fallacy. But somebody somewhere has to sell oil nations something in return. And the US, through however many removes, has to do business with that person. (Otherwise, the Arabs etc are adding to their financial reserves which could be problematic....mostly for them).
EDIT: Should add that the dollar that leaves the US to pay for imported oil doesn't have to come back via selling something concrete. It could also come back via investment in the US by oil nations or by somebody who does biz with them by any number of removes.
You are correct that we don't have to directly produce anything of value to the Arabs in order to buy oil from them. However,
I think this was more the point: American money is being held in reserve by foreign nations in the form of debt, and that debt has been increasing exponentially. The problem isn't whether the Arabs want our exports, it's that we don't export enough period to balance what we import, and we make up the difference by borrowing.
Also, while it is technically true that dollars flow back into the US via foreign investment, that doesn't mean value is flowing back. Dollars flow in, but the ownership of an equal amount of capital is flowing out - that's what investment is.
The trade deficit + foreign investment amounts to trading our capital (the key to long term wealth) for consumable goods. This is very bad..
"Also, while it is technically true that dollars flow back into the US via foreign investment, that doesn't mean value is flowing back. Dollars flow in, but the ownership of an equal amount of capital is flowing out - that's what investment is."
The problem here is that much of the money is being used to purchase assets - everything from US equities to realestate to commodities. That is why the stock market has held up quite well and has not declined per Kunstler's predictions. Look at the companies suffering from the mortage fiasco and then look at who has bailed out some of them. Wasn't Dubai making an investment in one of the large mortage houses or banks with the condition that the investment converts to a loan should it fail?
The same problem exists with commodities. Those holders of large amounts of US cash (oil exporters plus China) are driving up the cost of metals, energy and grains as they buy to enlarge their economies. In the case of metals this is draining wealth from the US as the resources of copper, steel (iron), aluminum, etc. are exported as scrap and replacing these is not easily done since, like oil, the easily mined and smelted ores are gone. We are selling our souls in keeping the government budget deficit and trade deficit funded by foreign governments and companies.
When this all sorts out the US will have a much larger percentage of poor people compared to most other developed nations.
Well, foreign investment in many cases will create value for both parties!
I read somewhere that the Germans were investing in US wind farms.
This is really interesting - I think most Americans subscribe to this, and it is exactly what you hear from big corporations that invest in the third world. Again, it is in a sense true - the factory owner has to pay the workers something or they won't work. But he doesn't have to pay them very much.
This is exactly how we've been robbing poor countries of their resources for the past century. We loan them money, then leverage the debt into ownership of capital. Once you own the means of production in a country, it is a simple matter to extract their natural resources while paying only subsistence wages.
Ironically, the same thing is now happening here. Lets say we run a trade deficit with Germany and the Germans buy a US wind farm with the money we owe them. We get power as long as we can pay for it and a handful of low to middle wage jobs. They get a large, continuous stream of revenue they can use to buy our resources and more of our capital. At the same time, we become dependent on them - if we refuse to sell our resources they can shut the power off. This is a gross oversimplification of course, but it illustrates the sort of danger involved.
The only time foreign investment benefits both parties is when natural resources are so plentiful as to be practically unlimited. As resources run out, Economics (the way we practice it)looks more and more like a zero-sum game.
I think you are still misrepresenting the equation. The jobs created may be of high quality. Wind turbine technicians, for instance, are not paid peanuts. In addition, the host nation receives a stream of power which may be used for many good things.
The foreign owner of the "means of production" contributes much that make his profits a suitable compensation for his efforts. He risks his capital, for instance. It may deteriorate, depreciate, or be seized by the host nation. His profits may never materialize, be insufficient to cover his costs, or be taxed heavily at the source (royalties).
You are right that foreign ownership can led to one party or another becoming exploitative. But that negative outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion nor is the host nation always the underdog!! (As we know well in the energy biz)
Barrett808 -
It's dejá vu circa 1973 -74.
The Muscle Car Era, lasting roughly from model year 1965 through 1970, was effectively over by 1973, largely done in by emission controls, safety requirements, and insurance premiums. Then the Arab oil embargo hammered the last nail in the coffin. It was a short period, but fun while it lasted, and we will never see the likes of it again.
During worst of that time the back rows of used car lots were filling up with the likes of Pontiac GTOs, Dodge Chargers and Challengers, Chevelle SS's, Boss Mustang, and the like. They could be had for a song. Today, some of the more desireable specimens in pristine or restored condition command upwards of six-figure prices.
Buying one of these back then and holding onto it would have been almost as good as buying Xerox in 1960. At the time who woulda thunk it?
I wish I still had my '70 Camaro with the 350 V8. It was actually a relatively mild version, but nonetheless, no matter how 'nice' I drove it, I seldom got above 15 mpg in combined city and highway driving. And that was with a manual transmission. Some guys I knew with the more serious muscle cars, such as a Plymouth Road Runner with the 440 ci engine and an auto, seldom got out of single-digit gas mileage.
During the Christmas of 1973 my wife and I made the 250-mile trip from the Boston area down to northern New Jersey at a constant 55 mph (so I wouldn't have to stop for gas), yet I got only a little bit better than 18 mpg.
It is well to remember that over the last several decades we've really come a long way regarding auto fuel efficiency, but we need to do much much better. There will always be a need for large vehicles such as SUVs and full-size pickups, but people don't need them for commuting or doing local errands. My guess is that the US could reduce its gasoline consumption by at least 30% and not feel a great deal of pain.
One step at a time, but don't wait too long to take that first one.
Another obvious solution is to cut back a bit, as Americans are in fact doing. I'm not sure why there is such terror at this solution. It's not as hard as it looks. It's been done before.
Robert,
Thank you for this.
There's more and more talk about 'a lot of' new refinery capacity coming online from overseas (India, KSA, etc) do you know of any good studies that analyze this?
There are lots of news reports on the various projects, but I am unaware of a single source that lists them. American refiners need to take note of the handwriting on the wall: Saudi has figured out that they will make more money shipping finished product than to ship oil and let someone else refine it.
Biofuel very well may be a permanent resource for airlines, if it can prove to be viable. Air New Zealand will be doing biofuel test flights starting early next year.
This went in the wrong spot. I'm not sure why.
Can someone explain to me why US Virgin Islands is such a major exporter to the US? Is it that they have huge refineries there and if so then where does the crude originate? Or due to transfer pricing on petrol from some other origins?
Also I was always under the impression that Saudi crude was going other places due to distances involved and that largely crude from Venezuela and Nigeria was heading to the US. But these figures show that actually a very substantial amount of crude does come directly from SA.
Amerada Hess has a huge refinery in the Virgin Islands, and they put that gasoline into the U.S. market.
built by Exxon IIRC. It's on St. Croix. I believe Hess and the Venz are in a joint venture in the operation.
OK, first post, I'm a Canadian, working for a Major and been expat with several postings around the world. Great original post, two thoughts:
1) I met a senior guy the other day who works for Valero, a large refiner in USA, he said somewhat similar but the reverse in that becaue many cars in Europe use diesel and not in US, just like Europe tankering lots of gasoline to US, we here tanker lots of diesel to Europe, probably on the same tankers. I have never seen any numbers on this but seems good reason that diesel in US is now very high vs gasoline resulting in the extra MPG from diesel being a bust due to higher cost of diesel.
2) Having Canada as #1 oil exporterd to US while true is I think misleading. When I was younger in 1080's I was taught that Canada was just barely self sufficient on oil production, while a lot of crude was exported to US via mid-west, a similar amount of oil was imported into Canada's East Coast, making Canada crude neutral. This was historically done for transportation cost reasons, ie cheaper to ship oil imports into US mid west from Canada's mid west and oil imports into Canada's East coast. While over the last 20 years, heavy oil and tar sands production have grown significantly I doubt Canada is now a large net crude exporter. Anyone have any numbers? The significance is that this oil imported and $ exported are really going for/to OPEC type countries, not Canada. Thus US & to some extent Canada are more beholden to OPEC type countries than this list portrays.
I met a senior guy the other day who works for Valero, a large refiner in USA, he said somewhat similar but the reverse in that becaue many cars in Europe use diesel and not in US, just like Europe tankering lots of gasoline to US, we here tanker lots of diesel to Europe, probably on the same tankers.
We are currently importing around 300,000 bpd of distillates, but we also export about 300,000 bpd:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_exp_dc_NUS-Z00_mbblpd_m.htm
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip_distillate.html#production
I doubt Canada is now a large net crude exporter. Anyone have any numbers?
Canada is in fact a large net crude exporter. See:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Canada/Background.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Canada/Oil.html