U.S. drops to 3rd place as Top World Oil Producers

Since I was small, my dad’s always told me U.S. was the biggest Oil Producing country and I didn’t really believe him since it always seemed that most of our oil comes from the middle east. However, I reported last summer that we were actually 2nd. I’ve been following the trail and started plotting points and adding to my data set and ended up with this graph:

Country x Year = Million Barrels Per Day

                     | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 |  2004
--------------------------------------------------------
Saudi Arabia         | 9.12 | 8.73 | 8.54 | 9.95 | 10.37
Russia               | 6.71 | 7.29 | 7.65 | 8.44 |  9.27
United States        | 9.08 | 9.02 | 9.08 | 8.84 |  8.69
Iran                 | 3.81 | 3.82 | 3.54 | 3.87 |  4.09
Mexico               | 3.48 | 3.59 | 3.61 | 3.79 |  3.83
China                | 3.25 | 3.30 | 3.37 | 3.54 |  3.62
Norway               | 3.32 | 3.41 | 3.33 | 3.27 |  3.18
Canada               | 2.74 | 2.80 | 2.94 | 3.11 |  3.14
Venezuela            | 3.14 | 3.07 | 2.91 | 2.58 |  2.86
United Arab Emirates | 2.51 | 2.42 | 2.38 | 2.66 |  2.76
Kuwait               | 2.25 | 2.15 | 2.02 | 2.32 |  2.51
Nigeria              | 2.15 | 2.26 | 2.12 | 2.25 |  2.51
United Kingdom       | 2.75 | 2.59 | 2.55 | 2.39 |  2.08
Iraq                 | 2.59 | 2.45 | 2.04 |      |  2.03

You can also download my Excel spreadsheet: Top World Oil Products – Chart and Data Set.

If you enlarge the chart, you’ll see that United States was the #1 oil producing country for the years 2001 and 2002. However we fell to #2 in year 2003 and and now down to #3 in year 2004. Unfortunately year 2005 data has not been released yet.

This whole research was sparked off reading this blog entry: We Need a War for Oil (from HKenshin), because I was certain that U.S. was either #1 or #2, but was shocked when I found out we dropped even further to #3.

Sources: Top World Oil Tables

• Top World Oil Producers, 2004 (Ohio State University – Fisher College of Business)
• Top World Oil Producers, 2003 (SEC Info)
• Top World Oil Producers, 2002 (WaybackMachine)
• Top World Oil Producers, 2001 (networkideas.org)
• Top World Oil Producers, 2000 (Collin County Community College District)

One would wonder why if America is one of the top 3 oil producing countries, why do we still have shortages and have to bend our backs for OPEC. If you look at the Top World Oil Producers, 2004 table, you’ll notice that Saudi Arabia exports 8.73 million barrels per day (84.2%) and Russia exports 6.67 million barrels per day (72.0%), but United States is nowhere to be found on that list. I’d like to bring your attention to another table: Top World Oil Consumers, 2004. The United States consumes 20.7 million barrels per day (we only produce 8.69 million barrels per day) and we import 12.1 million barrels per day. That means we consume 238% of what we produce.

So yah… now you know why.

Shoot, maybe I should go to bed now. It’s 7:15am.