According to Peter Tertzakian on the Daily Show, double the amount of Oil from Saudi Arabia and equal to the entire mid east region of oil used in the United States comes from Canada.
Can anyone verify this? I havent seen a site for it anywhere else.
If this is the case, given all the other oil producing countries (Russia, Mexico, Venezuela…) What percentage of oil actually does come from the mid east to the US?
Search on: US oil imports
First link from Google:
http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html
A map below that quote shows Canada first with 17%. The Middle East combined is at about 20.2%.
Second link from Google:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
A chart follows with longer term numbers.
OK, according to the CIA factbook
Canada exports 1.37 million bbl/day (2004)
Saudi Arabia exports 7.92 million bbl/day (2003)
Under US Oil imports, CIA says “NA” but they do point out that the US consumes 12.42 million bbl/day MORE than it produces.
So in order for Peter’s comment to be true, only a tiny fraction of Saudi’s total exports goes to the US. There are certainly a lot of other potential consumers:
China imports 3.2 million bbl/day
Japan imports 5.5 million bbl/day
UK 1 miilon bbl/day
India 2 million bbl/day
Germany 2 million bbl/day
The world consumes 80.1 million bbl/day (2003 est.)
WHOA
At any rate…these numbers point out that if Peter’s claim is true, only 1/16th of Saudi Arabian oil is imported into the US, and while Canada may be the largest single exporter, the US must get relatively small amounts of oil from a large number of countries, and it apparently consumes around 13% of the worlds daily oil production, and has around 5% of the worlds population.
Ongoing Alberta tar-sands exploration and exploitation will likely lead to Canada becoming an even larger source of oil for the U.S. What’s been holding it back is the cost of the infrastructure, which can’t compete economically with Arab oil.
Among other notions is building a nuclear reactor in the far north to produce the steam necessary to process the tar-sands into crude oil. It’ll cost a few billion bucks up front, but after that it’s all gravy.
Persian Gulf countries provide around 18.7% of the U.S. oil imports and Canada supplies around 16.1%, so Tertzakian is certainly exaggerating. Canada is the single largest importer, but no one country provides the U.S. with most of its oil.
I think this is an example of why people were up in arms when it was revealed that something like 1/3rd of those of us 18-32 get news solely from entertainment sources like the daily show and SNL’s weekend update: entertainment news has no obligation to report the truth.
It sounds like he’s being a little sloppy. To me “oil” means crude oil, but we import refined products too. It’s not too surprising we import quite a lot of gasoline from Canada; if you lump the processed stuff in with the refined, Canada roughly equals what we get from the Persian Gulf, according to this pdf chart, (although you have to go all the way to the bottom of page 4). And I hope I’m not misreading it. Canada doesn’t reach twice Saudi Arabia though, even by this measure.
Also, the numbers shift over time and Katrina/Rita altered things too. There’s an article in Snopes that can be used as an illustration how the numbers go out-of-date. Although the results stay generally in the same ball park, it’s based on 2002 numbers and things have shifted a bit.