Can you name the top countries from which the U.S. imports crude oil? Here’s the answer from the Energy Information Administration’s website, along with the average number of barrels that were imported per day in Nov 2007 (in thousands):
- Canada (1,919)
- Saudi Arabia (1,530)
- Mexico (1,484)
- Venezuela (1,227)
- Nigeria (1,215)
- Iraq (508)
- Angola (408)
- Colombia (197)
- Algeria (184)
- Ecuador (154)
- Kuwait (154)
- Chad (107)
- Argentina (86)
- Russia (81)
- Brazil (78)
It’s interesting to me that Iraq only accounts for a little over 5% of our oil imports, and that over 75% of our imports don’t come from the Middle East at all.
Just a Monday morning fun fact for you.
Look for Brazil to climb much much higher in the next decade. They recently found huge reserves just offshore.
I know Nigeria has a very high quality oil. I wonder if that makes a difference, as well, in how these numbers are distributed.
I would also be interested to know how much we produce domestically. (no time today to look it all up, myself)
In 2006 that was on average 5102 barrels/day produced domestically.
Saudi and Mexico change places month to month. Some months as little as 10% comes from the middle east. This has been the case for several years now. That is why the smart politicians have changed their speeches from “dependence of Middle Eastern oil” to “dependence on foreign oil”. The average joe assumes they mean oil from terrorist havens.
You would think out of the 9332 barrels a day shown above, that we could find away to not need 2192 barrels of it (Saudi, Iraq, Kuwait).
Do we really need energy independence per se? That is 9332 barrels a day we are importing. Far easier to reduce or replace 2192 barrels than 9332 barrels.
It’s a global commodity. We get ours from those countries mainly because of logistical reasons, i.e. if Canada and Mexico can meet most of our needs, why bother shipping it from Middle East?
Good post.