I started this post almost a year ago, but forgot about it. But someone at The Oil Drum just said they wished they had more information on where our gasoline imports come from. No need to wonder, because the EIA publishes this information.
For 2007, our Top 10 importers of finished gasoline into the U.S. in thousand barrels were:
1. United Kingdom (Thousand Barrels) 25147
2. U.S. Virgin Islands (Thousand Barrels) 23590
3. France (Thousand Barrels) 11209
4. Canada (Thousand Barrels) 10605
5. Netherlands (Thousand Barrels) 10518
6. Norway (Thousand Barrels) 8406
7. Germany (Thousand Barrels) 8351
8. Russia (Thousand Barrels) 7387
9. Italy (Thousand Barrels) 7239
10. OPEC Countries (Thousand Barrels) 5516
Europeans demand more diesel. Since you get diesel and gasoline from the refining process, they get rid of their excess gasoline by sending it to the U.S. That helps keep gasoline prices in check. Take a look at diesel prices to see what gasoline prices might look like if not for the imports.
Robert, repeating my comment from TOD, that doesn’t look right. Thousands of barrels per day? That would mean 25,147,000 barrels per day from the UK? That can’t possibly be right. Is that per week? Or am I misunderstanding something here?
Annual total
Europe does the right thing by having high gasoline taxes and switching to more efficient diesel cars leaving and this basically subsidizes cheap gasoline prices in the U.S.
For those who wonder what Greyzone is talking about, when I first posted I put “thousand barrels per day.” But after looking at that for a few minutes, it didn’t look right so I double-checked. Here is what I wrote at The Oil Drum:
One correction: That’s “thousand barrels”, not “thousand barrels per day.” In other words, the UK sent 25.147 million barrels of gasoline to the U.S. in 2007.
Cheers, RR