Where in the world does the USA import its oil from?

This article is a follow-up to address a question I posed at the end of the article, Trends in Nigerian Petroleum Production and Consumption.

After considering the USA’s petroleum imports from its top five source countries, I pondered the question: where did the additional ~1-2 bbs/yr petroleum come from for the years 2004-2009 to account for the discrepancy between the USA’s consumption and the USA’s domestic production, plus the imports from its top 5 importers? 

I can now re-phase this question, “from the top 6 importers,” because after considering number six, Russia (see Fig 4 also reproduced below), there is still an about 1.5 bbs/yr discrepancy.

Even after considering the top six petroleum importers and domestic production, I still can not account for about 1.5 bbs/yr worth of petroleum imports into the USA especially in those peak consumption years around 2005-06. 

Where did that petroleum come from?

Since posing this question, I have found a source of information that helps shed some light on where in the world the USA imports its oil from.  The EIA has published a spread sheet entitled, U.S. Total Crude Oil and Products Imports (hereinafter, “Total Imports”). 

 

“Total Imports” is a massive spreadsheet that presents average US imports (in units of 1000s of barrels per day) of Crude Oil plus Petroleum Products, for the years 1973 to 2009 from about 30 to 90 difference source countries depending on the year being considered.  

It is just what I needed to answer my question.

 

Top Suppliers of Petroleum Imports to the USA in 2009

One thing I would like to correct, from the start, is a mistaken assumption that I had made about Fig. 5.4 of the Annual Energy Review for 2009 (and its associated Table 5.4).  Here it is one more time:

My mistake was to assume that the EIA was actually showing the top nine countries in their order of importance.  I should have been made more suspicious by the title, “Selected Countries.” 

According to the data presented in “Total Imports,” however, the top 10 countries exporting petroleum to the USA are presented below.

Notice that I have added to Venezuela, the separate entry in “Total Imports,” of imports for the US Virgin Islands (VI).  As already discussed in Trends in Venezuelan Petroleum Production and Consumption, the VI imports substantially all of its oil from Venezuela, and then passes the oil and petroleum products on to the USA.  This would actually put Venezuela + VI ahead of Mexico as the second largest petroleum exporter to the USA in 2009.

 

I find it curious that Fig. 5.4 of the Annual Energy Review excludes Algeria and Angola but rather includes the UK.  Why would the EIA choose to not feature the imports from Algeria and Angola, which together account for about 8 percent of the total exports, and instead, show imports from the UK, which provided only about 2 percent?  According to “Total Imports,” the UK is only the twelfth largest supplier, behind Columbia at 2.4 percent.   Actually, thirteenth, if I were to consider VI separately (VI would be tied with Columbia at 2.4%). 

 

Maybe the EIA’s goal was to portray the UK as still an important supplier, or, to suggest (by omitting Algeria and Angola) that petroleum from Iraq or Brazil are relatively more important than they actually are. 

The values in parenthesis above the bars in Figure 1 show each country’s the exports to the USA as reported in “Total Imports,” after conversion of 1000s of barrels per day into units of bbs/yr.  The sum of the imports from these ten countries (or 11, if you wanted to count VI separately) equals about 78% of the USA’s imports for 2009 or about 3.3 bbs/yr.  Added to my USA production for 2009 (2.6 bbs/yr; from the solid blue data point at 2009 in Fig. 4, from Trends in Russian Petroleum Production and Consumption, reproduced above) gives about 5.9 bbs/yr or about 80 percent of my estimate of USA’s consumption for 2009 (7.4 bbs/yr; from the solid red line in Fig. 4 above), or, about 87 percent of the reported consumption (6.8 bbs/yr; from the red data point in Fig. 4 for 2009).

To account for a larger portion of US imports, I considered all the countries in “Total Imports,” that contributed at least about 1 percent to the total US imports for 2009.  I ended up with sixteen countries (Norway contributed only 0.92 percent, but I accepted this as about 1 percent) shown in Figure 2 below:

The sum of the imports from these sixteen countries equals about 88% of the USA’s imports for 2009,  about 3.7 bbs/yr.  Added to USA estimated production for 2009 (2.6 bbs/yr) gives about 6.3 bbs/yr or about 85 percent of my estimated consumption for 2009 (7.4 bbs/yr), or, about 93 percent of the reported consumption (6.8 bbs/yr).

To account for the remaining 12% of the USA’s imports, I would have to “scrape lower into the barrel” of importers so to speak.  According to “Total Imports,” there were 82 countries that made a "non-zero" contribution to the USA’s imports in 2009, which for the purposes of the spread sheet was at least 1000 barrels/day. 

The sum from all 82 countries equaled 4.3 bbl/yr which added to US production of 2.6 bbl/yr gives 6.9 bbl/yr which is just slightly higher than the reported consumption of 6.8 bbl/yr.  Perhaps the discrepancy is a rounding error, or, because the 6.8 bbl/yr value is from the BP Statistical Review, while the 6.9 bbl/yr is from the EIA’s “Total Imports.” 

Thirty-three countries each contributed from 0.1 to 0.9 percent of USA’s total imports.  These countries, 17 through 50, in total contributed about 11 percent of the USA's imports.  The top five among this group are Equatorial Guinea (0.76%); Trinidad & Tobago (0.72%); Libya (0.68%); Azerbaijan (0.64%) and Chad (0.59%).  The remaining thirty-one countries (e.g., countries like Japan, Qatar, China, Egypt, Malaysia etc...) each contributed less than 0.1 percent of USA's imports, and in total contributed about 1% of the USA's imports.

Historic Petroleum Imports to the USA from the Top Importers of 2009

Figure 3 shows how well these top 10, or top 16, import source countries account for USA’s imports in the past.  Figure 3 is a variation on Figure 4, which still shows production and consumption data from the USA and my best fits, but replaces the export data derived from BP statistical review, and my NLLS analysis of this data, with the import data presented in “Total Imports.” 

Also shown is the additional contribution from the remaining countries 17-81 (with VI’s exports combined with Venezuelan).  

Figure 4 casts the data shown in Figure 3 in percentage terms.  That is, for each year, USA reported production plus the imports from the top 10 importers for 2009 (i.e., the countries shown in Fig.2), the top 16 importer for 2009 (i.e., the countries shown in Fig. 3), and all of the importers (i.e. at least 1000 b/d) for the year in question are shown as a percentage relative to reported consumption for the year in question.

For the entire 36 year period, USA production plus the top 10 importer from 2009, on average, accounted for 85.8±2.5 percent of USA consumption.  USA production plus the top 16 importers from 2009, on average accounted 90.3± 3.3 percent of USA consumption.  Considering only the 28 year time span from 1981 on, to exclude the dip centered at 1978, did not substantially change these averages (86.4±2.2 and 91.8±1.1, respectively).

That dip centered at 1978 is due the fact that, back then, there were significant sources of imports from a number countries that are not among the top 10 or top 16 providers in 2009, as illustrated in Figure 5 below:

Figure 5 considers all of the countries in 1978 that contributed at least about 1% to the USA’s total imports in that year.  As before, I combined the contributions from Venezuela and VI (8% and 5.3% respectively).  I might well have also added to Venezuela the petroleum from other Caribbean countries like Netherland Antilles, Bahamas and Puerto Rico (Trinidad & Tobago produces much of its own oil) but I couldn’t verify that, like VI, they were importing from Venezuela and then re-exporting to the USA.  

USA imports from Iran ended in 1979 after the Iranian-hostage taking incident and imports from Libya ended in 1982 after the USA declared an import/export ban.  As indicated above, since about 2005, after then ban was lifted, Libya has been making a come back as an important import source.  Substantial imports from Indonesia continued for another decade, but by the mid-1990s was less than 1%. and continued declining  Petroleum from the UAE dipped below 1% after 1980. 

Using the top 10 importers to predict USA consumption

Not withstanding the discrepancy in late 1970s, the sum of USA production plus the imports from the top 10 importers for 2009 accounts for a fairly constant 86 percent of USA consumption for a plus-three decade period of time.  This suggests that these data would be useful for predicting the USA’s consumption going forward.

For instance, consider Figure 6 below, which presents the same USA production and consumption data as shown in Figure 3:

Additionally, I have shown the sum of USA production plus the imports from the top 10 import sources (dashed green line) and this sum divided by 0.86 (solid green).  With the exception of the late 1970s, the solid green line tracks the reported USA consumption data pretty well.

This analysis gives me some assurance that by just considering and predicting USA production and imports from the top 10 importers, I can make a reasonably accurate prediction of USA consumption going forward. 

Now, I just need to finish the analysis for the remaining top 10: Algeria, Angola, Iraq and Brazil!

Next stop...Algeria. 

Trends in Russian Petroleum Production and Consumption

Russia is number six on the list of largest petroleum provider to the USA according to Annual Energy Review for 2009 (see e.g., Fig. 5.4 and Table 5.4).  According to the EIA’s country analysis brief for Russia,  most of Russia’s oil presently comes from Western Siberia, although untapped oil from Eastern Siberia, the Caspian Sea, and Sahkalin (in the Far East ) may play a larger role in the future.

Relatively little of Russia’s oil exports finds its way outside of Europe and Asia—only about 6% were exported to all of the western hemisphere: 

Unlike Saudi Arabia or Nigeria, which have had sent a fairly steady percentage of their net exports to the USA, Russian exports to the USA have come from essentially nothing to eight percent over the last decade. 

For instance, the EIA Russian energy profile indicates that Russia’s exports to the USA have gone from 24 in 1998 to 465 mbd in 2008.  Additionally the EIA’s published spread sheet entitled, U.S. Total Crude Oil and Products Imports (hereinafter, “Total Imports”)  indicates that in 2009, USA exports from Russia further increased to 563 mbd.  As a percentage of Russia net exports, this puts exports to the USA alone at 8%. So, the above chart from the EIA is somewhat out-of-date.

Therefore, although the USA is still a relatively minor consumer of Russian petroleum exports as compared to a number of European countries, there is a strong trend for Russia to export a greater proportion of its petroleum to the USA.  For instance, a linear regression analysis of the data presented in the above figure has an r² of 0.91 (slope 0.602; intercept -1201), suggesting a near linear increase in the percentage of exports to the USA equal to about 0.6%/yr.

For the analysis to follow, I have assumed that Russia’s exports to the USA will continue to increase according to this linear trend (0.6%/yr) going forward.
   

Non-linear least squares (NLLS) analysis of total petroleum production

Figure 1 shows total petroleum production for 1985-2009 as reported in the BP statistical review (it appears that prior to 1985, production was grouped under, “Other Europe & Eurasia”).

After a local peak in production in late 1989, there was a large, about 50 percent, decline in production in the early 90s, no doubt reflecting the collapse of the Soviet Union, a plateau through the mid 90s, then an up-turn in production in the late 90s and indications of a plateau since about 2006. 

Figure 1 also shows the best fit of the Hubbert equation to the 1999-2009 data (solid line best fit parameters: “a” = 0.17; Qo = 14.4; Q∞ = 85.6). I did not attempt a fit using my modified equation 9 to such a short time span of data. 

The best fit to the 1999-2009 data looks a lot like the best fit to Mexico’s production data from 1999-2009 and, if this trend holds, it suggests a rapid decline production (e.g., half of peak production in 2009 by about 2018).  Perhaps this trend will break with new production in eastern Siberia or other locations, but I see no trend in the data to support this.

In the export analysis to follow, I have using the NLLS analysis of the Hubbert equation best fit to the 1999-2009 data.
 

Non-linear least squares (NLLS) analysis of total petroleum consumption

Figure 2 shows the best fit of the Hubbert equation to Russia’s petroleum consumption data (as reported in the BP statistical review.  As illustrated in Figure 2, Russia’s domestic consumption since 1998 has been fairly flat and about half of its peak consumption in 1989. 

The red line in Figure 2 shows the best-fit of the Hubbert equation to the full data set from 1998-2009 (“a” = 0.036; Qo = 39.6; Q∞ = 110).  The best fit suggests that domestic consumption during this period may peak in 2014 although the rate of change in consumption is fairly flat.

Predicting future trends in Russian petroleum exports

Figure 3 shows the best fits obtained using the Hubbert equation analysis of the 1998-2009 time span of consumption data and the 1999-2009 time span of production data as well the 2002-2009 time span of production data.

The predicted export curve (solid green line) is calculated based on the difference between the production and the consumption curves shown in the figure.  Additionally, I show the “measured” export data from 1991-2009 time period (i.e., the BP statistical review reported production minus the EIA reported consumption). 

The predicted production and consumption trends suggests that Russia’s net exports would end in 2023, due to declining production and steady consumption at about 1 bbs/yr.

Impact on USA

Figure 4 reproduces the USA production and consumption trends, plus Canadian, Mexican, Venezuelan, Saudi Arabian and Nigerian petroleum measured and predicted future exports presented from the previous article, Trends in Nigerian Petroleum Production and Consumption.

 

The dark red line shows the addition of Russia’s exportable petroleum to the USA, which equals the predicted total exports (i.e., the solid green line shown in Figure 3) multiplied by the percentage of exports calculated from the slope and intercept obtain from the linear regression analysis done on the data in the graph, “Percent of Russian net exports to USA.” presented above.  The dark red circles show my estimate of Russia’s measured exports to the USA.

To make a better estimate of measured exports to the USA, I have refined my calculation as compared to previous articles in this series.  Namely, rather than apply the last year or several year average percentage of Russia’s exports to the USA to the past data, I have applied the actual year-by-year percentages to the USA, as calculated from the first graph in this article (extracted from the EIA energy profile, and “Total Imports”).  Thus the estimated measure exports to the USA equals the total measured production minus total consumption, the green circles in Figure 3, times this variable percentage.  I only depict measured values from 1998 and on because prior to 1998, there were substantially no exports to the USA from Russia.  

I also went back and performed the same type of correction to the measured estimated exports to the USA for Nigeria and Saudi Arabia —however the effect of this correction is barely visible in Figure 4.

Based on the predicted export trend, Russia’s exports to the USA by 2015 is predicted to equal about 0.178 bbs/yr and only 0.066 bbs/yr by 2020.  That is 85% and 31%, respectively, of Russia’s estimated exports to the USA in 2009 (0.21 bbs/yr).  Remember, these predictions are based on my assumption that Russian exports will continue to increase at 0.6%/yr (i.e., about 11% and 14% of Russian net exports in 2015 and 2020 respectively).  However, this does not mitigate the overall downward trend in Russian production, and hence, net exportable petroleum.  Nevertheless, for a few years, Russia’s importance as a supplier of petroleum to the USA will increase.  For instance, if the export trends for Mexico and Russia continue, by 2012, Russia should overtake Mexico in importance as a supplier to the USA. 


For 2010, I predict that Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Russia’s exports, together with USA’s domestic production, will provide about 68% of the USA’s predicted consumption.  By 2015, USA domestic production and imports from these current top six foreign providers will only amount about 56 percent of the USA’s predicted consumption.  Once again, by 2020 the USA is down to getting exports essentially from Canada and a small amount from Nigeria. 


Moreover, if the trend for a production decline does continue, I would expect that it will be most cost-effective for Russia to supply Europe through the pipeline networks connected to Russia, and to drop or reduce the percentage of net exports to its more marginal customers such as USA and China.


That small sliver of additional Russia oil added to the summation curve shown in Figure 4, tells me that I have reached a stage in this analysis where the further consideration of the USA's imports from other countries will be adding ever-smaller amounts to the summation curve.  I will continue to explore this for a few more countries, maybe up to the top ten of exporters to the USA, but I expect that the additions of petroleum exports for countries seven through ten will probably only bring the total up to about 75-80% of the USA’s predicted consumption for 2010.  The remaining 25-20% would have to be filled by more minor suppliers.


But, perhaps, one of countries seven through ten will show some signs of expanded exports going forward?