Where does the U.S. get their oil from?

By: Ethan K.

Where does the U.S. get their oil from? This is a good question. I am sure that almost every person reading this has gotten an email saying that we should all boycott one gas station or another, and that will automatically topple Saudi Arabia's oil export industry. I can't tell you how many of these chain emails I have gotten in the past couple of months. Americans are SO concerned about oil imports, yet they still go out and buy their Hummers and large gas guzzling SUV's. Hmmm...makes sense to me. Okay, so I finally had it with these emails and decided to do some research on where the U.S. gets its oil from.

I am here to set the record straight on where the U.S. gets its oil from. I jumped over to the Department of Energy's website to take a look at what they have to say about this matter, and it turns out that they have some great information about the matter. I guess that I should have thought of this before, but I guess I have been too preoccupied figuring out which gas station I should boycott. They thinking that "most" of our oil comes from the middle east is wrong. Sorry people...keep boycotting Citgo if you must, but I am here to tell you that THESE are the top ten countries that the U.S. imports from:

1. Canada
2. Mexico
3. Saudi Arabia
4. Venezuela
5. Nigeria
6. Angola
7. Iraq
8. Algeria
9. United Kingdom
10. Brazil

I don't know about you, but I only see three middle eastern countries in there (if you consider Algeria to be in the middle east). Okay, so Saudi Arabia is number three on the list, but look at where the majority of our oil is coming from! Dang!!! I have been boycotting Citgo, and Citgo Petroleum Corporation, which is owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, is importing almost all of its oil from Venezuela. Oops! Sorry, South America! According to the Dept. of Energy, a company like Motiva, which is partly owned by Saudi Refining Inc., would be expected to import a large percentage from the Persian Gulf. Hmm! Maybe I should boycott them. Will the crown prince of Saudi Arabia miss a payment on his royal yacht? Most likely, no...not even close. According to DOE, "In 2004, United States refineries produced over 90 percent of the gasoline used in the United States. Although the United States is the world’s third largest crude oil producer, less than 40 percent of the crude oil used by U.S. refineries was produced in the United States. Net petroleum imports (imports minus exports) account for 58 percent of our total petroleum consumption. About 50 percent of our petroleum imports are from countries in the Western Hemisphere, with 19 percent from the Persian Gulf, and 18 percent from Africa and 13 percent from other regions".

Okay, can we close this case now? We can boycott all we want, but oil companies can barely keep up with the demand for oil from China and India- countries that are starting to get more automobiles and have budding economies that demand it. They will always have a buyer! Why don't we start to show our government that we want our tax dollars going to new alternative fuel sources. I don't know about you, but renewable energy is the path to independence from any country's oil exports.

Check out the Department of Energy's list of crude oil imports in the current year.

Our thanks go out to the Department of Energy for setting this rumor straight!