Import concentration highest since 1997

Petroleum News

The concentration of U.S. crude oil imports among the country’s top five suppliers is the highest since 1997, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said April 19.

The five top foreign suppliers to the U.S. in 2012 were Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela and Iraq, accounting for almost 72 percent of U.S. net crude oil imports, EIA said, up 8 percent over the past three years.

The agency said Iraq replaced Nigeria as the fifth-largest supplier in 2012.

Net crude oil imports from the five countries averaged almost 6.1 million barrels per day in 2012, “even as total U.S. crude oil imports fell to their lowest level since 1997,” EIA said, with the share of the top five suppliers up from 64 percent in 2009, at 72 percent the highest since reaching almost 73 percent in 1997.

U.S. crude oil imports from Canada were a record 2.4 million bpd, up 8 percent from 2011. Imports from Saudi Arabia averaged almost 1.4 million bpd, up 14 percent from 2011, and the highest since 2008. Imports from Mexico averaged 972,000 bpd, down almost 12 percent and below 1 million bpd for the first time since 1994, “reflecting the steady decline in Mexico’s crude oil production,” EIA said. Crude oil imports from Venezuela rose 4 percent to 906,000 bpd, EIA said, the first increase since 2007, as that country’s state oil company sent more crude to U.S. refineries which was exported back to Venezuela as gasoline and other petroleum products.

Crude oil imports from Iraq averaged 474,000 bpd, up slightly more than 3 percent since 2011, moving Iraq ahead of Nigeria as the fifth largest supplier to the U.S. for the first time since 1999. Imports from Nigeria averaged 405,000 bpd in 2012, down 42 percent from 2011 and the lowest since 1985, EIA said, with U.S. domestic production of “light sweet crude oil of similar quality to Nigerian crude and lower demand for light sweet crude from United States East Coast refineries” contributing to the decline.