Oil is a critical resource underlying modern civilization. But where does all this oil come from? And who consumes it?
In the following video, we’ll find out.
Transcript
Oil Production – Jim Ladlee – Penn State
If you take a look at the top 10 oil producers in the world, you might be surprised to discover just how much oil the United States is producing.
At the moment, each of the top three nations is producing substantially more than any of the next seven.
I think it’s also interesting that production is coming from globally distributed sources. The Middle East certainly produces a large volume of oil, and that’s the region a lot people think of when the topic of oil comes up, but what a lot of people don’t know is that three of the top ten producing nations in the world are in North America.
Given what we know about global oil reserves, the general make-up of top-producing nations isn’t expected to change much in the coming years. Outputs will vary and rankings will change but we aren’t expecting any major new players to shake up the production side of things. Oil consumption trends, on the other hand, are a different story.
Once oil got a foothold, it quickly became the most significant component of global energy production and consumption.
Production is dominated by three countries: the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
But what about consumption?
You might expect the largest producers to be the largest consumers as well. However, this isn’t always the case. Consumption of oil is dominated by the United States, Total Europe and China. Of those big oil consumers, only the United States produces close to (88%) what inhabitants consume. Europe and China produce less than 30% of their needs. Whereas Saudi Arabia and Russia are two of the largest producers, they consume relatively little oil (only about 30% of what they produce). Canada is also able to export a large portion of their oil production. A small country like Norway stands out as producing more than 800% of their country’s oil consumption needs. The discovery of large offshore oil reserves in the 1960s allowed Norway to become one of the richest countries in the world.
Citations
Images: “Prairie Pumpjack in Alberta, Canada” by iStock