The big question is how do we go as a country from being a net exporter of oil to $5 to $6 a gallon for diesel fuel and trying to make deals with our enemies to get supply. I used 1600 gallons from Maryland to Florida last fall. Now I want to get back to Md and fuel is at least $2 more a gallon.
Long term trends. We’ve always been a petroleum importer. Russian oil imports accounted for very little of that but since Russia invaded Ukraine, the West has started to limit purchases of Russian oil to stop funding their war efforts. Since oil is a global commodity and can easily be shipped it has a global price. Our banning Russian oil is more symbolic and doesn’t affect the price but other countries do and hence affects our price.
Our net export status started long ago, as long term trends.
The top five sources of U.S. crude oil imports by share of total crude oil imports in 2020 were
Canada. 61%
Mexico. 11%
Saudi Arabia. 8%
Colombia. 4%
Iraq. 3%
The decrease import trend started in 2005, continuously.
It’s also a bit misleading unless you dig into the various categories. And remember we import petroleum products, refine and then export them both counting . So business decisions matter. Another oddity that affects the statistics: “ Because of logistical, regulatory, and quality considerations, exporting some petroleum is the most economical way to meet the market's needs. For example, refiners in the U.S. Gulf Coast region frequently find that it makes economic sense to export some of their gasoline to Mexico rather than shipping it to the U.S. East Coast because lower cost gasoline imports from Europe may be available to the East Coast.”
So it’s a complicated economic decision. And the trends started in the 1990’s.
However, the economic decrease started by Covid and the unemployment and lack of travel, caused our usage of petroleum to decrease, lowering the prices to what we saw in 2020. As the economy strongly recovered, petroleum consumption, imports and prices went back up.