Tag: oil

“Davidson” submits:

Every couple of days or so we get a headline declaring too much or too little oil will drown US companies and thus our economy. The US does net/net import crude Black LINE but mostly in a ‘take from Peter to pay Paul’ fashion which makes it more efficient to export from some sites only to import elsewhere due to simpler and lower transportation cost. The EIA produces weekly data for all of this. The ORANGE LINE represents US crude exports and the DARK BLUE LINE represents US exports of refined products at ~7mil BBL/Day.

While the US is currently a net importer of ~2.5mil BBL/Day this and a portion of our own production is refined and exported as higher value products . At a 0.9x conversion crude to products ratio the US export of refined products(7mil BBL/Day) is equivalent to 6.3mil BBL/Day of crude oil. The US is a net exporter, and any fear of disruptions globally will play little role in our domestic supply.

The US produces currently 13.5mil BBL/Day and imports 2.5mil BBL/Day for a total daily supply of 16mil BBL/Day(13.5 + 2.5 = 16). Exporting ~6.3mil BBL/Day in the form of higher value products makes US consumption 9.7mil BBL/Day.(16 – 6.3 = 9.7). Many of the arguments use an older consumption number in the range of 20mil BBL/Day ignoring the efficiencies and productivity in the US market since the 1990s.