Gulf Oil, By the Numbers

Since Sept. 11, a number of people, from both the right and the left, have suggested that the U.S. reduce its dependence on oil from the Middle East. Few commentators, however, have bothered to explore if such a diversion is even possible or how it might be accomplished, which is what I set out to do with my column this week. When I looked at the numbers, I was surprised to see that, amply motivated, the United States could wean itself entirely from Persian Gulf oil, given current global oil production patterns. Let me explain how this could be done.

First, let’s start with demand. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), the United States imports 8.9 million barrels of crude petroleum a day and produces 5.8 million (all statistics used in this article are from the DOE, some from its Energy Information Administration). If you price those supplies at the moderate and currently prevalent price of $25 per barrel, you arrive at a daily crude oil expenditure by U.S. firms and the government of $222.5 million, which is $81 billion annualized. We spend $81 billion a year buying crude oil on the world markets, primarily to drive our SUVs.

Now let’s look at supply. The U.S. imports between 50 and 55 percent of the oil it uses, depending on whether you count processing gains and field production in our consumption totals. This is 11.1 million barrels per day (BPD), or the 8.9 million crude plus 2.2 million BPD of refined products. Breaking that down by country and region, we find that 2.5 million BPD come from the Persian Gulf. Not surprisingly, we get 1.6 million BPD from Saudi Arabia, our primary supplier in the region. Quite surprisingly, we buy 0.6 million BPD from Iraq, presumably under restrictive aid-for-oil programs. The remainder is supplied by nations like Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, making the Persian Gulf account for 22 percent of U.S. imports. Interestingly, this means that one of the primary justifications of the Gulf War—that we are dependent on oil from Kuwait—is entirely spurious, as these consumption patterns roughly hold for over 15 years, excluding embargoes against Iraqi oil in the mid 1990s. Kuwait is and always has been a negligible supplier of U.S. oil.

Among the remaining members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Venezuela and Nigeria are the biggest exporters to the United States, accounting for 1.5 million BPD and 0.9 million BPD in 2000, respectively. This puts OPEC supplies to the U.S. at just over 5.1 million BPD. Somewhat surprisingly, non-OPEC nations account for 5.9 million BPD, meaning that OPEC accounts for only 46 percent of American imports. Among the non-OPEC states, we receive 1.7 million BPD from Canada, 1.3 million BPD from Mexico, and 0.3 million each from Colombia, Norway and the United Kingdom.

If we are to reduce our dependency on oil from the volatile Middle East, then we need to capture more supply from the OPEC and non-OPEC nations currently supplying us to replace the 2.5 million BPD we get from the Persian Gulf. According to the Energy Information Administration of the DOE, such alternatives are available. Russia exports a net (production minus internal consumption) 4.3 million BPD alone, of which we capture virtually nothing. Norway exports 3.1 million BPD, of which we get only 10 percent. Venezuela, an exporter of 2.7 million BPD, sends only 55 percent, or 1.5 million BPD to the U.S. Nigeria exports 1.9 million BPD, of which only 0.9 million BPD, or 47 percent, arrives in the U.S. Mexico, which directs 1.3 of its 1.4 million BPD exports to the United States, is contributing just about as much oil to the U.S. market as it can. In total, there are approximately 9.3 million BPD trading globally each day, from the major exporters alone, that do not arrive in the United States.

Thus, if the United States were determined to do so, it could entirely eliminate its dependence on oil from the Persian Gulf, albeit at the expense of making other net importers of petroleum—like France, Germany, Japan and South Korea—more dependent on Persian Gulf oil. Of course, saying that the U.S. can do this and that the U.S. should do this are two different things. While it would certainly be preferable not to have to depend on such a volatile region for a vital part of our economic livelihood, there’s the unsettling possibility that the Middle East may actually be more stable with U.S. economic interests firmly entrenched. After all, our oil money, economic and military assistance help hold up the non-democratic but occasionally reasonable governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, regimes which might otherwise fall to the fervent undercurrents of fundamentalism prevalent in those countries. What a fine mess we’re in.

Alex F. Rubalcava ’02 is a government concentrator in Eliot House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.