Regional Importers and Exporters
As one might expect, the world’s three largest consuming regions --
North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific -- are
all importers. All the other regions are exporters.
The Middle East
still exports vastly more oil than any other region, despite the strong growth
in production in other areas in recent years. This global dependence on Middle
East oil makes the geo-political importance of the Middle
East readily understandable.
There is less variation among the importing regions. In the decade
preceding its 1997-98 financial crisis, Asia-Pacific's economic boom propelled
it into the Number 1 spot, with import growth more than double that of any other
region’s. Even though the United States
is the largest individual importer, both net and gross, North America as a
region ranks third; because Canada and Mexico
are two of the United States’
three top oil suppliers, their exports to the
United States offset U.S. imports from these neighbors in
the regional calculation. (Net imports are gross imports minus gross exports).
This has kept North America’s import dependency
down to not much over 30 percent, half that of the Asia-Pacific region at its
1997 peak. The latter’s import dependency, and even its import volume, have
declined since then, but not by enough to threaten its position as the world’s
top importing region.
Back