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.

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