U.S. Crude Oil Exports Set Record
By Alex Mills
October 3, 2019
Even though crude oil prices have been soft recently, crude oil production and exports from the U.S. continue to grow.
Crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed at $52.64 Wednesday another daily decline – the seventh consecutive – and down about $8 from several weeks ago following the bombing of an oil facility in Saudi Arabia.
The decline in price can be attributed to an anticipated slow down in economic growth signaled by recent data regarding manufacturing, which has triggered a decline of almost 1,000 points on the DOW industrial average last week. The trade tension between U.S and China has added to the negative views of the economy.
Add in increased crude oil production around the world, and you have a recipe for softer oil prices.
U.S. oil production continues to increase finding new markets around the world.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports exports of crude oil increased to average 2.9 million barrels per day (b/d), an increase of 966,000 b/d from the first half of 2018. Also in the first half of 2019, U.S. crude oil exports set a new record-high monthly average of 3.2 million b/d in June.
The number of U.S. crude oil export destinations also continued to grow, and now exceeds the number of U.S. crude oil import sources, EIA said.
Asia was the largest regional destination for U.S. crude oil exports—1.3 million b/d in the first half of 2019—followed by destinations in Western Europe, which received 824,000 b/d. U.S. crude oil exports to North America, which almost exclusively go to Canada (the largest single destination for U.S. crude oil exports globally) did not change much from the first half of 2018 to the first half of 2019, averaging 458,000 b/d…..