The U.S. Is the World’s Top Gasoline Exporter
The U.S. Is the World’s Top Gasoline Exporter | OilPrice.com
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The United States is exporting gasoline more than any other nation in the world, supplying more than 16% of all exports of the fuel globally, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in an analysis on Tuesday.
Last year, U.S. motor gasoline exports (finished gasoline plus gasoline blending components) averaged 900,000 barrels per day (bpd). This is equivalent to about 10% of domestic consumption and enough to fill up the tanks of over 1.5 million SUVs per day, assuming an average tank size of 24 gallons, the EIA noted.
Although China and India are boosting their refining capacity and have raised their exports, the U.S. is the undisputed leader in gasoline exports.
Even large exporters of gasoline such as Singapore and the Netherlands have never exceeded 700,000 bpd in gasoline exports, the U.S. administration said.
The U.S. has been a net exporter of gasoline since 2016. Between 1961 and 2015, America was a net importer of gasoline for more than half a century.
Over the past decade, the U.S. has become a net exporter of gasoline as U.S. exports of refined petroleum products have grown, reaching records in both 2022 and 2023, the EIA said.
Higher refinery utilization and increasing refining capacity have been key factors in growing U.S. petroleum products exports, including of gasoline.
Even as U.S. refining capacity has increased, domestic gasoline consumption has not, which has made more gasoline available for export, the EIA noted. U.S. motor gasoline consumption in 2023 was flat compared with 2010, and 400,000 bpd lower than its peak in 2018.
Last year, U.S. petroleum product exports averaged a record 6.1 million bpd, up by 2.5% compared to 2022, EIA data showed earlier this year.
In 2020, the United States became a net exporter of petroleum for the first time since at least 1949.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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Charles is a writer for Oilprice.com
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Related Knowledge Center: Liquefied natural gas
Driven by plentiful natural gas produced from shale plays, the United States began exporting liquefied natural gas in 2016 when the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana opened and shipped its first cargo. Since then, additional capacity, or trains, have been added to Sabine Pass, and terminals have become operational in Cameron Parish, La.; Hackberry, La.; Cove Point, Md.; and Corpus Christi, Texas. The Energy Information Administration projects that U.S. LNG export capacity will reach 8.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) by the end of 2019, making it the third largest in the world, behind Australia and Qatar. The tariff war with China has the potential to impact some final investment decisions for additional terminals in the coming months.