Top 5 US Oil Importing Countries
Posted by Max Dunn Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:59:00 GMT
What are the top 5 countries that the US imports its oil from?
Most people would probably guess that Saudi Arabia is on the list, but they might also think that Russia is on it too, which it isn’t. (Russia is at number 14.)
Surprisingly, Canada is at the top of the list with 1.9 million barrels per day (mbd) and Canada exports more oil to the US than it uses itself. It gets about half of its oil from tar sands, and while there is a lot of oil locked up in tar sands it takes so much natural gas and water to get the oil out that it is unlikely that the daily production can be increased much more.
Saudi Arabia is second on the list and while it exports a total of about 9 mbd, the US gets only 1.5 mbd of this.
Mexico is third at 1.2 mbd which represents 80% of their exports, but their production is falling. The Cantarell field was the second largest producing oil field in the world before it peaked in 2004, and since then its output has fallen by an ominous 50%.
Would you guess that Nigeria is the 4th largest importer to the US at 1.1 mbd? It is, however Nigeria is a very unstable country and militant attacks routinely cause production to fall below its maximum potential.
Lastly, at number 5 is our friendly South American neighbor Venezuela at 1.0 mbd.
This list often surprises people. Most wouldn’t know that Canada is the top provider of our imported oil and that Nigeria is close behind at number 4.
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