Tom Whipple writes about the growing oil export crisis [View All]

Peak Oil Review -- June 2, 2008

Newly released information shows that declining world exports of crude oil are likely to become a major problem for importing nations well before world oil production goes into a decline. As the world’s largest importer, the US is particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon as exports from at least three major suppliers --Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria-- are dropping.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran a story containing a new EIA estimate that the petroleum products exported by the top 15 oil exporters fell by 2.5 percent or 1 million b/d from 2006 to 2007. Some of this reduction is due to depletion of older oil fields, some to political problems and increasing domestic consumption, perhaps a little due to the OPEC cuts of November 2006, and some to lack of sufficient investment to maintain production.

The EIA also reported last week that US crude imports during the first 143 days of 2008 were down by 2.9 percent over 2007 and that petroleum product imports were down by 19.6 percent. The US’s top suppliers in March were Canada (1.7 million b/d), Saudi Arabia (1.5 million b/d), Mexico (1.2 million b/d), Nigeria (1.1 million b/d), Venezuela (0.8 million b/d), and Iraq (0.8 million b/d). As exports to the US from Mexico, Venezuela and probably from Nigeria drop, increased imports from Iraq and Saudi Arabia are picking up part of the slack.