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Page added on May 5, 2016
Where Does The U.S. Get Its Oil?
Ever wondered where the United States imports its oil from?
Howmuch.net came out with some infographics to show that from 2000 to 2015. What we would highlight here is the notable shift from the U.S. depending heavily on Middle East countries and Mexico, to depending more on America’s neighbor to the north, Canada.
In 2000, the U.S. imported 661 million barrels of oil from Canada, 503 million barrels from Mexico, and a combined 902 million barrels from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
Here is 2005, which we note Iraq’s decline after the U.S. decided to take over…
In 2010, a notable decline in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait occurs, while Canada becomes a much more significant source of oil.
And here is 2015, in which the U.S. imports a whopping 1.37 billion barrels of oil from Canada, while Mexico provides 277 million (a 44.9% decrease from 2000 levels), and Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait combine for just 544.9 million barrels, a 39.6% decrease from levels in 2000.
In seeing this, it’s little wonder that OPEC has a keen interest in not cutting supply, as they know full well that lower oil prices will eventually (if not already) take out competition in the U.S. and Canada. Now we can see visually how one of the world’s largest importers of oil is shifting its preference, and should help everyone understand OPEC’s “totally unpredictable” inability to come to an agreement on oil production cuts.
* * *
The Wall Street Journal has some additional detail on how 2016 is shaping up so far for the U.S.
The U.S. is importing more foreign crude than it has in years, becoming one of the last ports of call for many oil-producing nations despite a glut of crude from domestic companies.
Oil imports this year have surged 20% to about eight million barrels a day since early May 2015, when they approached a 20-year low, according to federal data. Crude from the Republic of Congo, Russia and Brazil is arriving at U.S. ports, while Canada is sending a record amount of oil to the U.S., the data show.
A series of market disruptions in recent months is one reason for the sharp rise in imports, even though U.S. production is close to a three-decade high at nearly nine million barrels a day. These changes include Iran’s return to exporting crude after sanctions were lifted in January, a move that indirectly led to more U.S. imports even though Iran itself can’t sell to the U.S.
Another big driver: The rest of the world is running out of places to store oil. Facilities from Rotterdam to Cape Town already are near capacity, but the U.S. still has room to spare, said Brian Busch, director of oil markets for Genscape, a data firm that tracks energy shipments.
The U.S. has filled about two-thirds of its total storage capacity and has room for roughly 100 million barrels more, Mr. Busch said. By comparison, major storage hubs in China and South Africa appear full, and Europe’s main storage space centered in Rotterdam appears to be within 10% of its usable capacity, according to Mr. Busch.
But with more crude heading to the U.S., the states are moving closer to full storage capacity, too, said Skip York, a vice president with Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultant.
As U.S. tanks fill, “it will eventually have to put some downward pressure on U.S. prices,” Mr. York said. Even before then, the raft of new supply from overseas could weigh on U.S. oil prices.On Tuesday, oil for June delivery fell $1.13, or 2.5%, to settle at $43.65 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, on expectations that U.S. crude inventories will keep climbing. Crude is up 67% from a 2016 low hit in February but down 28% from a year ago.
Still, rising imports isn’t bad news for everyone in the oil patch. Traders that can afford to hold oil and lock in higher sales through the futures market are big beneficiaries.
Refiners like Phillips 66, major energy companies like BP PLC and international trading houses like Mercuria Energy Group are storing foreign crude in the U.S. so they can sell it for a profit later, according to federal data.
Socking away oil in American storage can cost between 30 cents and 85 cents a barrel each month, which is well below the $1 a barrel or more it takes to keep crude floating in oil tankers, observers said.
“That’s precisely why some of these traders import it, to put it in storage,” said Amrita Sen, co-founder of Energy Aspects, a London consulting firm.
A Wall Street Journal analysis of U.S. Energy Department numbers shows nearly 114 million barrels of foreign oil entered the U.S. between May 2015 and February and went to storage tanks. The majority is parked in Oklahoma and Illinois. That figure is up 30% from less than 88 million barrels in the same period a year earlier.
Meanwhile, wait times to deliver foreign crude into the U.S. have become so backlogged that more than 28 million barrels of oil are sitting idle on tankers in the Gulf of Mexico, according to ship-tracking firm ClipperData. That figure is more than double the normal level, ClipperData said.
Storage space isn’t the only reason for the U.S. import boom. Countries like Venezuela and Iraq are selling oil for low prices just to keep pumping, observers said, and Iran is ramping up exports.
U.S. refiners still are prohibited from buying Iranian oil, but crude from the Persian Gulf country going to other destinations has unleashed a chain reaction that is causing more oil to flow into the U.S.
Iran has been underpricing many of its competitors to win back market share. That means some countries that got cut out of business in Europe and Asia because of lower-priced Iranian crude are selling to the U.S. market, traders and analysts said.
Countries like Angola, Albania and the U.K. recently delivered crude to New Jersey, California and Louisiana after Iran underpriced them, according to oil traders and analysts. These countries haven’t had much U.S. business since the shale revolution until this year, according to ClipperData.
Saudi Arabia also shipped 33% more crude to the U.S. at the start of 2016 than it did during the same period last year, boosting volumes into the country back over one million barrels a day, federal data show, as the kingdom seeks to increase its market share.
Tom Cambridge, chief executive of Cambridge Production Inc. in Amarillo, Texas, said he has been concerned about the increase in imports and the downward pressure that it can exert on U.S. oil prices.
He and a few other oil executives have been trying to drum up support among politicians to push for quotas on foreign oil imports, he said. “If you’re filling up at a station in Texas, chances are you’re running on Saudi gasoline,” Mr. Cambridge said.
Another factor influencing imports: The cost of shipping oil on U.S. trains is more expensive than importing foreign crude, a reflection of low oil prices and shifting transportation costs.
Refineries in Washington state, which often process Alaskan crude, are importing more oil from Argentina and Brazil, according to federal records. New Jersey and Pennsylvania plants are importing from Azerbaijan, Chad and Gabon, crude that competes directly with the Bakken Shale.
“It currently makes more sense to import a tanker of crude from Nigeria than to buy an oil train from North Dakota,” said Stephen Wolfe, senior oil strategist in Houston at Trafigura Beheer BV, a commodities trading firm.
35 Comments on "Where Does The U.S. Get Its Oil?"
makati1 on Thu, 5th May 2016 6:04 am
Interesting that the Empire still gets 129 million barrels from Russia. 309 million from Venezuela. 2.3 million from China. I thought they were the enemy? Not to mention the oily contents of all of the imports in the form of plastic pea shooters and other junk from China and rocket engines from Russia.
Cloud9 on Thu, 5th May 2016 6:19 am
What do we export to pay for all that oil?
onlooker on Thu, 5th May 2016 6:21 am
Yes very interesting and enticing to the Big Oil companies the revenue from those 309 million from Venezuela. Don’t worry you will soon get your greedy hands on that revenue considering the economic status of Venezuela.
Davy on Thu, 5th May 2016 6:52 am
Cloud9 “What do we export to pay for all that oil?” Cloud one thing we export is the basics of the food chain in the form of agricultural production. If you want to use Makati Bill’s line of thinking China is importing a huge amount of oil and water from the US in the form of food since our food chain is oil and water based.
rockman on Thu, 5th May 2016 6:53 am
“A Wall Street Journal analysis of U.S. Energy Department numbers shows nearly 114 million barrels of foreign oil entered the U.S. between May 2015 and February and went to storage tanks. The majority is parked in Oklahoma and Illinois.” And once more lies/ignorance from the WSJ. Not just OK and IL but the entire PADD 2 (which includes all the mid-west states) is currently about 25% of the stored oil. PADD 3 (Texas, La and the rest of the Gulf coast) is holding twice as much oil as PADD 2.
Not necessarily a very critical error. But if the researchers at the WSJ can’t do a 60 second Internet search to get the correct numbers AS POSTED BY THE US GOVT how much faith can one have with the rest of their analysis?
And then there’s the lie/ignorance by omission. While they focus on changes in oil import they ignore not just the US oil export volume (1/3 of a BILLION BBLS OF OIL during 2013-15) but more important how much of that imported volume (3 BILLION BBLS OF OIL from 2013-15) is immediately refined with those products exported.
And while we’re talking about US oil EXPORTS: since President Obama lifted the US oil export “ban” last January the country has exported less oil during the first 2 months of 2016 than it did during the last 2 months of 2015 when the “ban” was still in place.
makati1 on Thu, 5th May 2016 7:14 am
Cloud9, the Us prints dollars to pay for it. The Us has been running a trade deficit since Nixon took it off of the gold standard. It is currently running at about 1/2 Trillion dollars a year. Where do you think China got all of those billions in reserve? LOL
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-trade
Part of why the dollar is worth about 5 cents today and why China, Russia, etc. are all getting rid of those paper ‘assets’. The Us cannot stop printing or it will collapse.
makati1 on Thu, 5th May 2016 7:15 am
Oops! … China got all of those TRILLIONS in reserve…
Davy on Thu, 5th May 2016 7:21 am
The truth is always hard to take for the anti-mericants. China is in a hole it will never climb out of. Makati Bill can’t argue the sources either because he routinely uses ZH these days.
“China Unleashes A Debt Tsunami: Creates $1 Trillion In Debt In First Two Months Of 2016”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-18/china-unleashes-debt-tsunami-creates-1-trillion-debt-first-two-months-2016
“China’s Credit Nightmare Explained In One Chart”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-14/chinas-credit-nightmare-explained-one-chart
“China’s Cost To Avoid The Dreaded Working Class Revolution: A Record CNY11.1 Trillion, And Rising”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-22/chinas-cost-prevent-working-class-insurrection-cny111-trillion-and-rising
“China Debt Bubble Goes Full Frontal—-$1 Trillion Of New Credit In First Two Months of 2016”
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/china-debt-bubble-goes-full-frontal-1-trillion-of-new-credit-in-first-two-months-of-2016/
“Money Creation: Explaining What’s Happening in China?”
http://positivemoney.org/2015/09/money-creation-explaining-whats-happening-in-china/
Boat on Thu, 5th May 2016 9:18 am
mak,
“Interesting that the Empire still gets 129 million barrels from Russia. 309 million from Venezuela. 2.3 million from China. I thought they were the enemy? Not to mention the oily contents of all of the imports in the form of plastic pea shooters and other junk from China and rocket engines from Russia.”
Are you sure your from the US? US companies trade all over the world. Mostly they are free to sell a service or product. Mostly they are free to buy any service or product. It’s called capitalism. How the world works.
Davy on Thu, 5th May 2016 9:35 am
Well 500,000 just went offline from Canada:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/fallout-devastating-canadian-wildfire-over-500000-barrels-offline-1-billion-losses
onlooker on Thu, 5th May 2016 9:42 am
We shall see if the markets react to both this in Canada and also the Iran threat to close the Hormuz strait.
GregT on Thu, 5th May 2016 9:44 am
“It’s called capitalism. How the world works.”
Wrong Boat. The world works through naturally occurring processes. Capitalism is destroying those natural processes.
Capitalism is nothing more than a fancy word for greed. Not to worry though. You’ll eventually figure it out, the hard way.
ghung on Thu, 5th May 2016 10:01 am
“It’s called capitalism. How the world works.”
Wrong Boat.”
Right, Greg. It isn’t working. Capitalism is the snake that eats it’s own tail. Capitalism is depleting it’s resource base at phenomenal rates, and destroying the very environment in which it operates. I don’t consider that “working”.
onlooker on Thu, 5th May 2016 10:16 am
Capitalism works the same way Cancer works as Ghung pointed out. It invades and devours its host. Host=Earth. It then dies along with its host. Unfortunately, we are part of the Host.
Boat on Thu, 5th May 2016 10:49 am
And we all contribute to killing our host. Suck it up and take it like a man. The instant a baby is born they start their careers as host killers.
onlooker on Thu, 5th May 2016 10:55 am
Your confusing a natural process with planet killing. Yes population has gotten out of control. But you cannot blame population for our insatiable materialism. That is all on Capitalism.
GregT on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:06 am
“The instant a baby is born they start their careers as host killers.”
The Boat non-sensical quote of the day…..
onlooker on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:17 am
Greg, do you have any info on what is happening with the fires up there. I hope they are not close to where you are.
GregT on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:23 am
Some 800 miles away from where I am Onlooker. The only info that I have is the same as anybody else.
Here’s a video from yesterday’s evacuation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC2iPvXAggM
onlooker on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:24 am
Oh so pretty far. Good. Because those fires seem hellish.
GregT on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:28 am
Sam truck- rearview Cam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fym6X-JvEOs#t=87.655252014
Apocalyptic!
GregT on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:29 am
Sorry, Same truck…..
Anonymous on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:34 am
Where does the uS STEAL and EXTORT other people’s Oil from?
Fixed the title. As for what the uS ‘exports’ to ‘pay’ for it? Well, they do print paper dollars, backed by terrorism and military force. Inept and incompetent military force, but still quite capable of wrecking whole regions. It doesn’t matter that the military force used to ‘back’ petro-dollars cant actually ‘win’ a war, or even hit its intended ‘targets’, but no matter. Is the thought that counts and as long as the world is forced to use petro-dollars for oil, it doesn’t matter that the uS doesn’t export much of anything besides HFCS, CGI movies, and guns.
If you look at those nifty little maps jewhedge came up with, the bulk of those nations are uS colonies. The uS studiously avoids buying oil from countries with independent gov’ts as much as it can. But, sadly, keeping suburbia and Nascar in business means buying oil from its enemies. Even ones it cant subvert or ruin economically.
Now, imagine for a moment, what would happen to the empire of chaos and terror, if its energy subsidies were withdrawn?
That will be worth seeing….
onlooker on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:39 am
Anonymous good and accurate description of US relation with Oil and Oil producing nations. As for your last question. Well we are already seeing the answer. WAR.
Davy on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:41 am
This does not bode well for oil:
“Surprise! Baltic Dry Index Plunges Most Since November As Commodity Bubble Bursts”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/surprise-baltic-dry-index-plunges-most-november-commodity-bubble-bursts
“Who could have seen this coming? Remember a week ago when TV entertainers crowed about the surge in The Baltic Dry Freight Index was a “clear signal” that ‘China is back’ baby and that escape velocity growth was just around the corner as global growth was destined to pick up…Well, just as we warned very explicitly, the ramp in the index merely reflected the frenzied speculation in industrial metals by the Chinese and as authorities have cracked down on that idiocy, so the Baltic Dry has plunged by the most since November… as real demand punches back.”
Boat on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:54 am
Anonymous,
More racist off the wall blather. Any country can use any kind of money they want. Most like a stable currancy. Why does Russia sell to the US? Lol to make money.
regardingpo on Thu, 5th May 2016 11:59 am
“The instant a baby is born they start their careers as host killers.”
Who left the nuthouse door open?
GregT on Thu, 5th May 2016 12:03 pm
“More racist off the wall blather.”
Since when was the United States of America a race Boat?
More idiotic nonsense.
“Most like a stable currency”
And which fiat currency do you believe to be stable? The USD?
200 Years Of (US) Dollar Debasement
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-12/200-years-dollar-debasement
Fuck are you ever stupid.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 5th May 2016 1:36 pm
That is a strong statement, what happened to the UN? Last thing I heard of them accomplishing was causing a pandemic in Haiti when some of their workers contaminated a water supply. Kind of like the EPA, well we caused a mine spill, now we should take it easy for a while.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/05/05/doctors-without-borders-pulls-out-un-humanitarian-summit.html
Apneaman on Thu, 5th May 2016 3:25 pm
Hey kids, how about an updated on the latest fossil fueled externality?
I guess the main worry for cancer monkeys is how this latest AGW jacked disaster will affect the flow of that precious supply of tar juice.
Fort McMurray wildfire grows 8 times larger overnight
No firm estimates yet available on number of structures that burned overnight
“‘Lightning was coming from the smoke clouds'”
“It has begun to create its own weather, even creating its own high winds yesterday, and even lightning was coming from the smoke clouds,”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fort-mcmurray-wildfire-grows-8-times-larger-overnight-1.3568035
The future is here.
Apneaman on Thu, 5th May 2016 3:42 pm
Canadian oil surges as wildfire knocks out more production
“NEW YORK (Reuters) – Canadian heavy crude physical prices hit their highest levels since February on Thursday, as a raging wildfire in northern Alberta shuttered nearly one-third of the nation’s oil sands production and closed key pipelines.
ConocoPhilips COP.N became the latest oil company to evacuate operations near the city of Fort McMurray on Thursday as the massive blaze spread south, covering a larger swath of Alberta’s key oil sands region.
At least 640,000 barrels per day of crude output is offline, according to Reuters calculations, out of Canada’s total oil sands production of 2.2 million barrels a day.
So far, the wildfire has forced seven oil sands operators, including Suncor Energy Inc SU.TO, Shell Canada RDSa.L and others to reduce production as workers were moved to safety. It also stymied transportation of crude and feedstocks normally delivered via trains, pipelines and roads.
Earlier this week, the entire population of 88,000 people in Fort McMurray was ordered to evacuate as the fire grew, incinerating dozens of homes.”
http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCAKCN0XW1J4?sp=true
McMurray is/was a shithole and there is only one reason anyone would drag their family up there. Was it worth it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHNgz_JQyZQ&spfreload=5
onlooker on Thu, 5th May 2016 3:45 pm
Could this spell the final descent of the pipe dream that was Tar/Shale?
Anonymous on Thu, 5th May 2016 3:53 pm
That’s life in the sacrifice zone….
Boat on Fri, 6th May 2016 12:11 pm
onlooker on Thu, 5th May 2016 3:45 pm
Could this spell the final descent of the pipe dream that was Tar/Shale?
If shale died the glut would turn to shortage spawning investment in (drum roll please) Tar/Shale.
Ian Jones on Sun, 17th Feb 2019 2:53 am
Wonderful profits news from RBS showing that when government governs, our important institutions remain intact, no matter what the political climate ma be. https://www.carpettilewholesale.co.uk