U.S. Oil imports at historic low

31 Comments on "U.S. Oil imports at historic low"

Nony on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 5:32 pm 



Go oil! Go football! Go America!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M

Plantagenet on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 5:50 pm 



Drill baby drill and frack baby frack.

Perk Earl on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 7:00 pm 



“crude oil imports of 7.6 million barrels per day in August”

Rah, rah, sis, boom, bah, at 100 dollars a barrel is seven million six hundred thousand dollars a day ($7,600,000.) x 30 days = 22.8 billion dollars in oil imports for August. Yee haw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, wait that’s money going out of the US?! No rah, rah, sis, boom, bah, just a harsh reality we are still importing huge amounts of oil, but who’s counting? Go America, yee haw, go baby go!

Nony on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 7:10 pm 



Keep fracking. Drive it down. 9 million bpd. 10 million bpd. *hear the CRY, CRY, CRY from the Hubbert peak lovers. Then 11 million bpd. More, more, more.

Makati1 on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 7:48 pm 



And then I woke up….

Nony on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 7:57 pm 



Morning wood

HIruit Nguyse on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 9:01 pm 



Nony, you do realise that was a Satire video that you posted a link to didn’t you?

“Slavery Fuk Yea, Books (blank space)”

Norm on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 9:57 pm 



Need some smart guys who know everything, to post about this article. I think they would explain the government’s crooked definition of oil. What we are exporting is more like paint thinner, and what we are importing is real crude oil.

Well, since there is now plenty of oil, everybody light an 18-wheeler on fire, just like the movies. Or buy an Escalade, same thing. Fun for the whole family.

Nony on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 10:00 pm 



Yeah…I know. That’s what makes it triple sweet. Like waving my willy. 😉

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W18wvWyGdbE

Nony on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 10:07 pm 



Actually the value of the WTI is higher than of the heavy sour. Funny to hear peakers complain about the oil being too light when they all said it would be too heavy 10 years ago. Never satisfied. Go Bakken, goooo!

Hiruit Nguyse on Sat, 20th Sep 2014 11:32 pm 



Just in case this has fallen off of anyone’s radar…

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL061055/abstract

Kenz300 on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 7:45 am 



The biggest use for oil is in transportation fuels.

Maybe more people are walking, riding a bicycle or taking mass transit. Owning a car is expensive and many people find that they can live without the luxury of owning a vehicle……. calling a cab or using Uber to get a ride works for many people……

Bicycle rental programs are being implemented in many cities and more bicycle and walking paths are being developed that provide safe connections to work, schools, homes and businesses. A bicycle is a great way to travel. Good exercise and low cost transportation. More cities are beginning to realize that bicycles are a good option to reduce congestion.

Cities are becoming more people centered and less auto centered.

Even trolleys are making a come back in some major cities. Mass transit is a good option for many people living in some cities.

The fact that new cars are being produced that get in many cases double the gas mileage of the ones they replace also helps. 40mpg is better than 20 mpg. The auto fleet keeps turning over and replacing gas guzzlers with high mileage vehicles.

Electric, flex-fuel, hybrid, CNG, LNG and hydrogen fueled vehicles are being added to the transportation mix. Every major auto maker now produces an electric or hybrid vehicle.

Ethanol now makes up 10% of most fuel sold. E85 sales are increasing as the lower price of E85 compared to regular gasoline grows.

There is no one reason for the drop in gasoline. There are many reasons for the drop in gasoline demand.
That is a good thing.

rockman on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 7:54 am 



Earl – Exactly. Those with minimal math skills haven’t been able to understand why our trade deficit from oil has increased even though we import fewer bbls. Same with folks who refuse to acknowledge that the prime reason the US is producing more oil is because the consumers are spending $600+ billion/yr compared to $225 billion just 10 years ago. Producing more domestic oil goes hand in hand with a huge increase in the wealth transfer from the public to the oil patch. Good news for the Rockman et al…not so much for everyone else. Simplistic minds talk about bbls and avoid discussing $’s.

Newfie on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 8:25 am 



I stopped consuming gasoline. I can’t afford a car.

Boat on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 9:14 am 



A lot of that money has gone to jobs world wide and wealth to those that own oil patches including folks and companies in the US. The higher prices have also made cleaner alternatives more competitive. Whats not to like.

JuanP on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 10:05 am 



My wife and I have shared a car for around five years. Before that we each had our own since we came to the USA together. Before I met her I owned two cars, drove a VW to work and played with an old 1969 Mustang Mach 1.
During our weekly packrafting trips and on our every day lives we now use a variety of options. A bike sharing program that serves all of Miami Beach, a car sharing program, Car2Go, which is very cheap and useful, the bus service, which sucks, a 12 mile boardwalk and path along the beach, our feet and car.
We also used to fly a lot and cut down drastically about 15 years ago. And we also went on regular long road trips across the USA, going from one natural park to another, and mostly avoiding large cities, but the last time was 8 years ago.
I never calculated my direct consumption of gas, but I estimate I am using in my 40s less than 10% of what I used in my 20s.

shortonoil on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 10:12 am 



US manufacturing has been gutted, its financial system is a train wreck waiting for a signal change at the junction of insolvency; Americans can no longer find good high paying jobs outside the government, and housing permits just hit a 14 years low. From Belgrade, to Beijing, to Detroit the world is spiraling into the abyss of an economic black hole.

Drill Baby Drill, as along the Gulf Coast massive storage tanks are being built to house millions of barrels of unmarketable energy devoid hydrocarbons. Pioneer, and Marathon in a recent attempt to export it found that even the Chinese couldn’t be enticed into buying it. Its quality is that low. The South Koreans, and the Japanese took a little, but since then we’ve heard no further reports of them purchasing any more. But the last bastion of US financial health, the refining industry, is dependent upon it. Since the home market has become a dead man walking, they are reliant on foreigners to buy their finished products. The growing inventory of poor quality, low energy oil keeps the price of all petroleum depressed. The $10/b, or so, differential saves the industry $73 billion per year in material costs, and keeps US exports of kerosene, and diesel booming. Gasoline has almost become their lost leader.

When the rest of the world completes its death spiral into the new upcoming dark ages, at the end of the age of oil, the US refining industry will loose its vitality. The home market is not likely to be revitalized by our over production of high test prairie dog pee. In the meantime, it is comforting to know that Armageddon is being temporarily held at bay by a few billion barrels of the lowest quality oil on the planet! Let’s not spend one minute, or one dollar on preparing for the inevitable result that is occurring as the survival of the present system finds it necessary to scrape out the bottom of the barrel. Drill Baby Drill! That way we can keep the present unsustainable system going, maybe, for one more day! Drill Baby Drill, what a fitting epithet for the tombstone of the modern world.

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/

Poordogabone on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 10:25 am 



“In terms of demand, API said its petroleum delivery metric showed a 1 percent increase year-on-year to 19.3 million bpd, the highest in three years.”
“Petroleum demand last month showed slow but steady growth, mirroring economic indicators for domestic manufacturing, air travel and job creation,” said API Chief Economist John Felmy.
Economists….

How do you define “petroleum”? is bio fuels, ethanol considered petroleum? if yes, there is I suspect a lot of double counting going on.
US net energy consumption I’m almost certain is slanting downward.

Davy on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 10:27 am 



Capiche, Noo and M? I hope Short slapped some sense into you graph readers.

ghung on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 11:39 am 



Us overall energy consumption per real dollar GDP has been dropping for decades, until recently:

h ttp://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_16.pdf

The most pronounced drop in the GDP/energy ratio coincides with an increase in debt (debt being substituted for energy-spurred productivity), off-shoring of manufacturing (transitioning to a more ‘financialized’ credit-based economy) and efficiency gains.

Seems we’ve taken that paradigm about as far as it can go; the land of diminishing returns, since there’s no way energy ‘growth’ can beget GDP growth at a level required to retire ever-increasing debt. We’ll face either banks full of low quality dollars or deflation of real capital, likely both. We’ve consumed and spent ourselves into a corner which is slowly closing in on unchecked capitalism.

I’m always amused by Nony and others who conduct themselves like these things don’t matter. They’ve likely begun off-shoring their financial interests, quite fine to leave behind an economy and resource base that have been gang-raped and left in the ditch. They’re right about one thing. It really doesn’t matter, as the damage was done decades ago, though it takes a true sociopath to embrace this process so completely.

Hiruit Nguyse on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 2:11 pm 



From earlier this year….

http://www.ogfj.com/articles/2014/05/imagine-there-s-no-export-ban-no-need-to-split-the-condensate.html

shortonoil on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 4:06 pm 



Very good article above, and a lot of it we have stated in posts here from time to time. But, it is still worth the read.

But we would like to help clarify the meaning of “condensate”. To a geologist, engineer, or physicists a condensate has one meaning. A condensate is a liquid that “condenses” out of a gas. It is a change of state due to a change in temperature, and or pressure of a gas, and has absolutely nothing to do with the liquids API gravity. Rain is a condensate.

The term condensate has been used in the petroleum industry since the 1920’s when producers found that a light liquid could be retrieved from the “associated” gas than comes along with all petroleum production. Because the temperatures, and pressures of conventional crude is usually quit low the condensate that they retrieved was primarily pentane (C5H12), the lightest liquid hydrocarbon at standard temperatures and pressure. By the 1940’s condensate gas fields where being widely developed in many places around the world. The production of these fields began to supply the then rapidly growing petro-chemical industry, particularly the plastics industry.

Condensate production has increased in recent years mainly because of the shale industry in the US. The mid section of the Eagle Ford is classified as a “rich” condensate field because of its very high temperatures, and pressures (up to 300F, and 6000 psi). About 7% of the volume produced from this field yields fairly heavy hydrocarbons (up to C10) before the pressure falls in the field. After the pressure falls to a certain level (called the dew point) the field produces mostly lighter gases.

The shale industry has attempted to change the technical meaning of condensate to obfuscate the fact that a good deal of what they were producing was not oil, and condensate has now been connected to API. Its definition depends on who is doing the defining.

For those with a technical bent, here is a good article on condensate, and how to judge a condensate field:

http://www.slb.com/~/media/Files/resources/oilfield_review/ors05/win05/02_understanding_gas_condensate.ashx

Hope this helps to clarify a very confusing subject.

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/

Northwest Resident on Sun, 21st Sep 2014 8:24 pm 



Less imports for the USA makes room for other countries to import more — China for example. And it might even take a little pressure off of some of the exporters who the USA would normally be buying from to pump all we demand. It works out for everybody. Too bad it won’t last. When peak US shale oil production arrives, things will start to get very interesting.

Makati1 on Mon, 22nd Sep 2014 3:44 am 



Misleading headline:

“U.S. Oil imports at historic low”

Actually it is only the lowest it has been since about 1993. But, for the US, historic is anything that happened yesterday. They don’t let facts get in the way of spin.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUS1&f=M

Ralph on Mon, 22nd Sep 2014 4:47 am 



The world is all too happy to burn any oil that the US does not need. $100 oil? No problem for these consumers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19716687

marmico on Mon, 22nd Sep 2014 6:59 am 



The U.S. petroleum trade deficit in nominal dollars is improving and is at the same level as 10 years ago.

Davy on Mon, 22nd Sep 2014 7:38 am 



Ralph, ya, but for how long? It will not be very long and this oil supply/demand phenomenon will affect the countries you mention in your link. It is a matter of the interconnectedness of BAU. Countries like China have high growth needs reliant on exports. A significant amount of those exports are to the developed west. There are anti-westerners here who believe China and Russia can decouple from the west along with the other Brics. This is nothing more than talk. Are there any significant results of this talk currently? Nope, just talk, and again it is a matter of no time no money. China is in a disguised economic free fall. It is well known China needs growth to battle the entropic decay of such a large population, economy, and social tensions of mass urbanism. Russia is mortgaging itself by going anti-western. It costs money to do what Russia is doing. Rightly or wrongly what Russia is doing is a big gamble. The rest of the Brics are basket case economies with multiple problems. These problems are going to be compounded by the fed taking away the punch bowl of cheap and abundant credit in the taper. It is well know this credit has flowed into the developing markets in the risky pursuit of high returns. This is going to be a fall for all countries and regions

rockman on Mon, 22nd Sep 2014 10:18 am 



NR – “Less imports for the USA makes room for other countries to import more “. Yes and no I suppose. Set aside our increased oil production for the moment and focus on product exports. We export bout 3 million bbls of products every day. That’s about 1 BILLION bbls of oil per year we take out of the global market that we don’t consume…oil that other countries compete for and lose because we bid the price up too high. But then we send that oil back to those countries in the form of products that cost more per unit volume then the oil did originally. Our refiners make the profit…not those in foreign counties. Consider how the EU refiners are suffering because they can’t compete very well against US and Chinese refiners for the feedstock.

What’s interesting is that US product exports began rising about the same time as US production did. Makes you wonder if we hadn’t increased domestic production maybe we would be importing more oil to satisfy domestic demand. On a spread sheet it would appear that most of our domestic production increase is being exported as products.

Which is the main reason why I think the debate over exporting US produced oil is a contrived issue. What’s the difference to the US consumer whether we export the oil or export all the products made from that oil?

Northwest Resident on Mon, 22nd Sep 2014 11:25 am 



rockman — As usual, there are so many twists and turns in the oil business that it seems nothing is ever as it appears to be. Thanks for the added info. But hey, one thing we do know for sure, and that is whatever oil America doesn’t buy/import, it will surely get bought by somebody else. Right??? No drop or particle of fossil fuel left unburned — that will be the epitaph on the tombstone of humanity.

Kenz300 on Mon, 22nd Sep 2014 11:59 am 



Even former oil baron’s are divesting from fossil fuels.

Climate Change is real…. the sooner we transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources the better.

——————-

Rockefeller’s, Heirs to an Oil Fortune, Will Divest Charity of Fossil Fuels

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/us/heirs-to-an-oil-fortune-join-the-divestment-drive.html?emc=edit_th_20140922&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=21372621

Nony on Mon, 22nd Sep 2014 6:49 pm 



Rockman, the difference to Americans is that refiners in the U.S. are buying crude at a discount to the world price and selling refined products at the competitive price. If we allowed full free trade, WTI would go up some, Brent would come down some, drilling would be incented more and refined product prices would come down. The effects might not be dramatic…but they would certainly be in this direction. Econ 101.