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The US was a net exporter of crude oil as recently as December, 2018. Indeed, only an idiosyncrasy of the law, reversed in 2015, prevented the comparably coloss

The US was a net exporter of crude oil as recently as December, 2018. Indeed, only an idiosyncrasy of the law, reversed in 2015, prevented the comparably colossal, richest country in the world from being a net exporter until very recently.

tqkxzugoaupvwqr 8y ago
Putting my tinfoil hat on: From a geopolitical standpoint, the USA’s longterm strategy likely was to deplete the oil reserves of foreign nations while keeping a large domestic reserve until the end. This has the advantage of being able to force those nations into submission once their oil runs out. When that is the case, domestic production is ramped up to cover domestic needs and the needs of foreign nations … as long as they back the interests of the US. This decades-long strategy could have worked brilliantly until the end if it wasn’t for clean energy. Now that it’s clear that clean energy sources will replace fossil fuels sooner than later, all the domestic oil sitting in the ground needs to be extracted and sold as fast as possible before it becomes worthless. Since the US and foreign nations won’t depend on oil in the future, the US won’t need its oil reserve and floods the global market with all they’ve got for that sweet, sweet money.
- ppf 8y ago
  I think you're overstating the position of clean energy. The US currently gets 11% of its power from "renewables". 45% of that is from burning biofuels, wood, and a very small amount of bio waste.
D_Alex 8y ago
This is complete and utter rubbish. I do not know where you got this from, care to share? The US used to be the worlds largest net importer of crude oil since at least the 1950s, and only recently (2016 or 2017) got overtaken by China. The US is by far the largest consumer of oil, using circa 20 million barrels per day, while producing around 12.5 million. Besides China, no other country even uses as much oil as the US imports.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  I went digging. I found his claim repeated in a CNN article [1], but also found your claim backed up by government statistics [2][3]. His point was also backed up by a forward-looking government report, though [4]. Basically, the main differences were in products counted (CNN's headline includes natural gas and refined petroleum products as "oil exports", categories where the US is a heavy exporter) and in timescale. The production stats you cite are rising very rapidly - for reference, in 2018 alone U.S. production increased by 3 million barrels/day, almost 30% yearly. That's growing faster than the tech industry. So the government predicts that by 2021, the import/export shortfall will be completely erased and we'll be a net exporter of petroleum. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/08/business/us-oil-exports-saudi-arabia/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/08/business/us-oil-exports-saudi... [2] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCRFPUS2&f=W https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W... [3] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6 [4] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf
  - D_Alex 8y ago
    Good job on doing the research - let me comment as follows: EIA publishes crude import and export figures directly, see here: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_snd_d_nus_mbblpd_m_cur.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_snd_d_nus_mbblpd_m_cur.... The second line of the above reference shows crude imports at 7.25 million bbls/d and crude exports at 2.57 million, so net imports of crude oil are circa 4.7 million bbls/day. Even this surpasses India (4.5mmbbls/d) and Japan's (3.9mmbbls/d) total usage, and only China and the US itself use more. And of course the original claim that the US is a net exporter of crude oil is completely wrong. The rest of the statistics needs to be read with caution - what EIA calls "petroleum products" is an odd bunch, ranging from ethane (gas) to petcoke (solid). Such products are not counted in production numbers of Russia and Saudi Arabia, for example, and are also, pound-for-pound, of much lesser value than crude oil. They have a disproportionate share in the US exports. High value products such as gasoline, diesel and jetfuel are consumed "at home".

tqkxzugoaupvwqr 8y ago

Putting my tinfoil hat on: From a geopolitical standpoint, the USA’s longterm strategy likely was to deplete the oil reserves of foreign nations while keeping a large domestic reserve until the end. This has the advantage of being able to force those nations into submission once their oil runs out. When that is the case, domestic production is ramped up to cover domestic needs and the needs of foreign nations … as long as they back the interests of the US. This decades-long strategy could have worked brilliantly until the end if it wasn’t for clean energy. Now that it’s clear that clean energy sources will replace fossil fuels sooner than later, all the domestic oil sitting in the ground needs to be extracted and sold as fast as possible before it becomes worthless. Since the US and foreign nations won’t depend on oil in the future, the US won’t need its oil reserve and floods the global market with all they’ve got for that sweet, sweet money.

ppf 8y ago
I think you're overstating the position of clean energy. The US currently gets 11% of its power from "renewables". 45% of that is from burning biofuels, wood, and a very small amount of bio waste.

D_Alex 8y ago

This is complete and utter rubbish. I do not know where you got this from, care to share? The US used to be the worlds largest net importer of crude oil since at least the 1950s, and only recently (2016 or 2017) got overtaken by China. The US is by far the largest consumer of oil, using circa 20 million barrels per day, while producing around 12.5 million. Besides China, no other country even uses as much oil as the US imports.

nostrademons 8y ago
I went digging. I found his claim repeated in a CNN article [1], but also found your claim backed up by government statistics [2][3]. His point was also backed up by a forward-looking government report, though [4]. Basically, the main differences were in products counted (CNN's headline includes natural gas and refined petroleum products as "oil exports", categories where the US is a heavy exporter) and in timescale. The production stats you cite are rising very rapidly - for reference, in 2018 alone U.S. production increased by 3 million barrels/day, almost 30% yearly. That's growing faster than the tech industry. So the government predicts that by 2021, the import/export shortfall will be completely erased and we'll be a net exporter of petroleum. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/08/business/us-oil-exports-saudi-arabia/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/08/business/us-oil-exports-saudi... [2] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCRFPUS2&f=W https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W... [3] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6 [4] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf
- D_Alex 8y ago
  Good job on doing the research - let me comment as follows: EIA publishes crude import and export figures directly, see here: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_snd_d_nus_mbblpd_m_cur.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_snd_d_nus_mbblpd_m_cur.... The second line of the above reference shows crude imports at 7.25 million bbls/d and crude exports at 2.57 million, so net imports of crude oil are circa 4.7 million bbls/day. Even this surpasses India (4.5mmbbls/d) and Japan's (3.9mmbbls/d) total usage, and only China and the US itself use more. And of course the original claim that the US is a net exporter of crude oil is completely wrong. The rest of the statistics needs to be read with caution - what EIA calls "petroleum products" is an odd bunch, ranging from ethane (gas) to petcoke (solid). Such products are not counted in production numbers of Russia and Saudi Arabia, for example, and are also, pound-for-pound, of much lesser value than crude oil. They have a disproportionate share in the US exports. High value products such as gasoline, diesel and jetfuel are consumed "at home".