Posted on 03/28/2012 5:12:33 AM PDT by thackney
The amount of crude oil the United States imported from its top five foreign suppliers—Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria—increased slightly during 2011, even though total U.S. crude oil imports fell to their lowest level in 12 years. As a result, the crude oil from these five countries accounted for a bigger share of overall U.S. crude oil imports, nearly 69%, or just over 6.1 million barrels per day (bbl/d).
Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria have consistently been America's five largest crude oil suppliers, although their rankings varied from year to year. However, U.S. purchases of crude oil in 2011 increased from Canada and Saudi Arabia and declined from Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria, according to final trade data from EIA's February 2012 Company Level Imports report.
Combined crude oil imports from the five countries increased by less than 1% during 2011 to 6.1 million bbl/d. At the same time, total U.S. imports fell about 3%, or 0.3 million bbl/d, to 8.9 million bbl/d. That marked the lowest annual level of crude oil imports for the United States since 1999.
The combination of lower total U.S. crude oil imports and higher crude oil shipments from the top five foreign suppliers boosted their market share to about 69% of all U.S. crude oil imports during 2011, compared to 66% in 2010.
Highlights from the U.S. top crude oil importing countries in 2011 included:
Canada. Crude oil imports averaged a record 2.2 million bbl/d, up 12% from the year before, and topped 2 million bbl/d for the first time because more oil is now being transported by rail.
Saudi Arabia. Crude oil imports averaged 1.2 million bbl/d, up 10% from the year before, and were the highest level since 2008.
Mexico. Crude oil imports of 1.1 million bbl/d were down 4.5% from the year before and the second lowest since 1995, reflecting the steady decline in Mexico's crude oil production and rising domestic fuel demand.
Venezuela. Crude oil imports of 0.9 million bbl/d were down 5% from the year before and the lowest since 1992.
Nigeria. Crude oil imports of 0.8 million bbl/d were down 22% from the year before and the lowest since 2002, due in part to civilian unrest that disrupted the country's crude oil production.
This article refutes that 8.9mm bbl/day. It’s actually 19mm bbl/day in 2010. The 8.9mm must be a “net basis” number - exports minus imports. Plus, the import rankings are wrong, according to this 2010 study.
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/gas/us-energy-facts/
My typo error; should be:
Imports minus exports = net basis.
8.9 is imports
19 is total consumption
The rankings are the 5 year average, not 2010 only numbers.
The Keystone pipeline would replace 200,000 barrels of Venezuelan heavy crude with Canadian Crude. That is about 20% of Venezuela’s exports to the US.
The Canadian and Venezuelan crude are nearly identical. If the Venezuelan crude is displaced it may have a hard time finding a home somewhere else since most of the non US refinerys are not designed for this heavy crude. Furthermore, there are extra costs involved in shipping the crude to Europe or China.
Plus, Chavez is up for reelection this year. Losing money on crude exports would be very bad for him.
source:
http://oilsands.infomine.com/countries/
Venezuela
Located in eastern Venezuela, north of the Orinoco River, the Orinoco Oil Belt is of a similar geographic extent as that of the Canadian oil sands. The deposits are not bitumen per se but extra-heavy oil. (Natural bitumen and extra-heavy oil are closely related types of petroleum, differing from each other only in the degree by which they have been degraded from the original crude oil by bacteria and erosion.)
The Venezuelan deposits are less degraded than the Canadian deposits and, due to their more equatorial location, are at a significantly higher temperature. Therefore they are easier to extract by conventional techniques - however they are still too heavy to transport by pipeline or process in normal refineries.
Unlike Canada, Venezuela has not had access to capital and technological prowess; therefore it has not been able to optimize the design and construction of bitumen upgraders and heavy oil refineries. In addition, the Venezuelan product has a high sulphur content and particulate emission making it difficult to meet international environmental regulations.
That's true, but only because Chavez has been siphoning off the oil profits to distribute goodies to his base rather than reinvesting them in capital improvements.
And because of Chavez’s history of nationalizing oil company property in joint ventures. He doesn’t have access to much of the newer technologies because many of the oil companies won’t touch him.
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