![]() ![]() Just Became a Net Oil Exporter for the First Time in 75 Years.” The language was unequivocal in its praise of the domestic oil industry, which has leveraged fracking wells in Texas and North Dakota to produce record amounts of oil, approaching 12 million barrels a day. Last month Bloomberg broke news of what sounded like a triumph of American exceptionalism: “ The U.S. No amount of embellishing government statistics changes those facts. We’re actually far from energy independent. That price recovery helped boost oil production.Contrary to what we’ve heard, the United States does not export more oil than it imports. Between 20, the annual average price of West Texas Intermediate rose more than 50%. That happens to be the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, but it also corresponds to Saudi Arabia waving the white flag and trying to prop oil prices back up. In 2017, we resumed the march toward energy independence. shale drillers out of business by flooding the market with oil and collapsing the price. What happened in those years? That’s when Saudi Arabia tried to put the U.S. It shows that our march toward energy independence stalled in 20. This graphic gives a more nuanced picture of events over time. This shows the evolution of our energy independence over time and smooths out the month-to-month noise.īecause of some months in which we imported a lot of oil, I thought we probably had lost our net exporter status at some point. Instead of looking at calendar years, I looked at the 12-month average for each month. (I should note that sometimes the EIA revises these numbers, but it would take some pretty big revisions to change the energy independence status of 2021).īut these numbers prompted me to wonder whether we had lost our energy independence on a rolling 12-month basis after we initially gained it. But, the full calendar years of 20 both turned out to be net export years. We had lost our energy independence several times on a monthly basis since May 2020. That is significantly down from 2020, but it is still energy independent according to the net export definition. Net exports grew each month from September through December to push the final average for the year to a net export number of 162,000 BPD. But the Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently posted the numbers for December, and we now have an answer. would be a net exporter for the entire year of 2021. In other months, we were a significant net exporter. In certain months, we were net importers (and hence, lost our “energy independence” per that definition). In 2021, we oscillated between net imports and net exports on a month-to-month basis. ![]() became a net exporter for the first time in modern history. In the second half of the year, net imports once again became net exports. imported (net) three quarters of a million BPD. But then by May we had to start importing again. For the first four months of 2020, net exports averaged one million BPD. energy demand and energy production both plummeted. However, when the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in widespread stay-at-home orders, U.S. Net exports in 2020 averaged 635,000 BPD for the year. It is therefore true that we gained energy independence (per this definition of net imports) under President Trump. During President Trump’s last year in office, the net import number turned negative. When President Trump took over, the downward trend continued. During Obama’s last full month in office, the number was 4.2 million BPD. ![]() By the time President Obama left office, the number had declined to 4.8 million BPD ( Source ). net imports of petroleum and petroleum products (e.g., gasoline, diesel, jet fuel) averaged 12.5 million barrels per day (BPD). net imports have been declining since 2005 as a result of hydraulic fracturing. ![]()
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