© Kris Krug
In a dynamic that shows just how far U.S. oil production has come in recent years, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
said on Monday that in the last two months of 2018,
the U.S. Gulf Coast exported more crude oil than it imported.Monthly net trade of crude oil in the Gulf Coast region (the difference between gross exports and gross imports) fell from a high in early 2007 of 6.6 million b/d of net imports to 0.4 million b/d of net exports in December 2018. As gross exports of crude oil from the Gulf Coast hit a record 2.3 million b/d, gross imports of crude oil to the Gulf Coast in December-at slightly less than 2.0 million b/d-were the lowest level since March 1986.
U.S. oil production hit a staggering 12.1 million b/d in February, while that amount has been projected to stay around that production mark in the mid-term then
increase in the coming years. The U.S. is the new global oil production leader, followed by Russia and Saudi Arabia, while Saudi Arabia is still the world's largest oil exporter - a factor that still gives Riyadh considerable leverage, particularly as it works with Russia, and other partners as part of the so-called OPEC+ group of producers. However,
Saudi Arabia's decades-long role of market swing producers has now been replaced by this coalition of producers, reducing Riyadh's power both geopolitically and in global oil markets. In short, what Saudi Arabia could once do on its own, it has to do with several partners.
Comment: The US finds itself in a different reality where, under the weight of its own corruption, it no longer has the best arms or means of coercion that it once had. In its place, China, and Russia, have strategically positioned themselves on the international stage offering mutually beneficial deals. And after decades of economic collapse in the West as well as sorely lacking in resources of all kinds, they're in no position to refuse; lest they further engender public fury:
- Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline cannot be cancelled - Merkel's successor
- Macron feigns friendship with Africa, issues warnings about China
- Pepe Escobar: The Caspian sails towards Eurasian integration
- Italian port of Trieste aiming to be China's primary entry into Europe
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