U.S. Oil Exports
U.S. oil exports totaled $13.5 billion through September 2017; this is already a record high. In 2011, oil was the nation’s 146th-ranked export. Through September 2017, it ranked 15th.1 And through September 2017, the United States sent oil to 31 nations, up from ten countries in 2015 and four in 2011.
Asia is attracted to U.S. crude for a number of reasons: its refineries are configured to process high quality light, sweet crude that the U.S. oil companies produce from shale oil basins; U.S. crude is less expensive as the WTI trades at a discount to other oil benchmarks such as Brent; and cargoes can be bought on a spot basis, providing refiners flexibility to balance the conventional Middle Eastern supplies that are sourced via long-term contracts.2 In contrast to Asian refineries, the U.S. refining system operates with a heavier slate of crude oil.
When OPEC and Russia agreed to cut oil production to balance oil’s supply-demand fundamentals, the Middle East’s oil exports to China fell, encouraging China to diversify its suppliers. In 2017, China became the largest single buyer of U.S. seaborne crude. U.S. light, sweet crude is available for export from multiple U.S. terminals, is shipped in vessels of all sizes, is easy to process, helps to meet tightening product sulfur specifications in China and is priced to be exported. Nine ships carrying 369,000 barrels a day of crude oil left the United States for China in October 2017—a record high.3
In November 2017, 19.7 million barrels of U.S. oil was due to arrive across Asia, equivalent to about 657,000 barrels per day based on vessels that are currently underway, and those that are discharging or have discharged their cargoes. This is over 50 percent more than...
