Fracked domestic production rapidly replaced West African oil which instead goes to Asia and to Europe reducing dependence on Russia. Talk of United States Africa Command protecting energy sources for America disappeared as quickly.
US domestic production is again >50% of consumption, and the great majority of imports are from Canada or northern Latin America.
Gulf refineries (Texas, Louisiana) still import some oil from Gulf producers (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait), mainly because they had invested heavily in refineries for heavy oil, but Western Hemisphere sources of heavy oil are lagging: Keystone XL is not bringing tar oil from Alberta, and Mexico and Venezuela have been slow to work with international oil companies to expand production.
80%+ of Persian Gulf oil goes east to Asia. Less than 20% goes west and even this is now exceeded by West African and South American oil going east to Asia. The Atlantic Basin has become for the first time a net exporter to the Indo-Pacific basin instead of a net importer.
Read other answers by Joseph Boyle on Quora:
- Could/would the United States wage an economic war against OPEC nations by supporting domestic oil production (and thus keeping a low market price for oil)?
- Why is the US so obsessed with Middle East oil when it has the country with the world’s second largest oil reserves right next to it (Canada)?
- Is Mongolia next on Putin's hit-list and, if so, what would that mean for US-China relations?
from Quora http://ift.tt/25BJtGO
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