<DrumBeat: January 27, 2009 The Oil Drum Nate Hagens on BBC Regarding Obama Energy Policy>

101 comments on Obama's Energy Policy Announcement

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Gail the Actuary on January 27, 2009 - 11:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I put together a graph showing net US imports from Canada, Mexico, and UK+Norway.

Imports from Canada are not increasing very rapidly, and in fact are down in 2008 (10 months). And of course, as Westexas notes, Canada imports oil on its East Coast. WIthout its imports, it would not have oil to export to us.

I should mention something I discovered in the EIA data that does not affect this graph, but affects the other graphs I showed today, including the EIA graphs. In the particular report I took the EIA data from, the EIA totals for OPEC and Non-Opec change as to which countries are included in OPEC each year. My numbers are correct using this definition, but it is a little confusing. This is confusing to me, because some other EIA reports I am familiar with use current OPEC definitions for totals, rather than changing definitions by year.

If the countries included in OPEC had remained constant, non-OPEC would not have dropped as much as it did, and

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ThirdChimpanzee on January 27, 2009 - 11:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

OK, thanks for digging into this. I finally remembered where I had gotten the idea that Canada was the largest exporter to US. It was the EIA site : http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_l...
This says Mexico is only 1.3 million bpd but your graph implies a net 3 million bpd. Am I missing something ?
Only thing I would add about the East Coast is that from a US import standpoint, the amount Canada has for export doesn't change much no matter what the Canadian East Coast does, since we can't physically get the western oil there. I guess for the ELM model, the east coast is just another net importer competing for the oil with other countries.

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JustZisGuy on January 28, 2009 - 1:14am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Gail said:

And of course, as Westexas notes, Canada imports oil on its East Coast. WIthout its imports, it would not have oil to export to us.

Are you sure about that? According to the EIA,

Canada’s total oil production (including all liquids) was 3.36 million bbl/d in 2007. [..] Canada consumed an estimated 2.34 million bbl/d of oil in 2007.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Canada/Oil.html

So, if the oil could be shipped (pipelined?) east, presumably all domestic needs could be handled, still leaving a little over one million barrels per day to export, correct?

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Gail the Actuary on January 28, 2009 - 1:22am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I guess I should probably say, without imports, Canada wouldn't have as much oil to export. Without looking closely at the data, I would be cautious about subtracting one number from another. I know that in Canada in particular, you get different numbers from different sources, depending on how natural gas liquids are treated (or perhaps some other variable that is handled differently).

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JustZisGuy on January 28, 2009 - 3:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I guess I should probably say, without imports, Canada wouldn't have as much oil to export.

Well, that's definitely true. :-) The net effect, I suppose, is that the U.S. isn't really dependent on Canada for 2 million barrels per day, it's dependent on Canada for 1 million barrels per day, and dependent on wherever eastern Canada gets its oil for another 1 million barrels per day. If those sources decide they don't want to supply eastern Canada then I suspect there would be rather a lot of political pressure to "import" oil from western Canada rather than going without.

I am, however, hard pressed to think of any political entity that would refuse to supply eastern Canada but which would supply the U.S., and I'm almost certain there is no such thing as a Canadian leader that would have the guts to not export oil to the U.S.

To be pedantic, it's also true that without imports, the U.S. wouldn't be able to export as much oil to Mexico. Clearly, though, the net export/import situation is radically different in the two countries! Which was my main point: Canada is a significant net exporter, not importer. I would think the distinction matters quite a bit to Canadians.

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101 comments on Obama's Energy Policy Announcement

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