How much United States oil is exported?

Answer 1

There is no official answer to how much crude oil is being exported that is easy to find online. There is, however, a Forbes article dated July 3rd, 2008, that provides the following about refined products such as gas and diesel: "A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department." Based on the Energy Information Agencies' (EIA) numbers, the US uses approximately 20 million barrels of crude a day. The EIA also reports that 1 barrel of crude (42 gallons) makes approximately 20 gallons of gasoline and 7 gallons of diesel. Assuming that most of the exported products are gasoline and diesel, and knowing from calculating that roughly 64% of a barrel of crude oil (which is the percentage of gasoline and diesel that comes out of a barrel of crude oil) can be refined into gasoline and diesel, then the 1.6 million barrels a day being exported represents roughly 2.2 million barrels of crude a day or about 10% of the crude oil used daily by the US. It may be accurate to say that no crude oil is being exported from the US, but up to 10% of our crude oil is being exported in the form of refined products. This makes the argument that the US has a shortage of refining capacity to handle the US market questionable at best. The assumption made here is that most of the refined products being exported are gasoline and diesel instead of other oil related products. If this assumption is way off, please post what the correct stats are and a reliable source for any correction.