The middle east is definitely a major producer of oil, but the US produces even more.
However, what would likely impact the world more than a reduction in crude production is that the US has the largest refinery capacity and exports 15% of the petroleum products it makes. Global refinery capacity is 103.5 million barrels per day, the US constitutes 18.4 million of that. While it’s relatively quick for other oil producing nations to bump up their crude production, any major disruption in refining would have huge effects on the prices of petroleum products. Refineries are very expensive and complex. They cannot be scaled up quickly unless there is idle capacity to bring back online.
Is oil an American commodity? Appreciate this might be a different #nostupidquestions.
I always assumed that oil was primarily a middle eastern thing hence the US’s interest in it.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545
The middle east is definitely a major producer of oil, but the US produces even more.
However, what would likely impact the world more than a reduction in crude production is that the US has the largest refinery capacity and exports 15% of the petroleum products it makes. Global refinery capacity is 103.5 million barrels per day, the US constitutes 18.4 million of that. While it’s relatively quick for other oil producing nations to bump up their crude production, any major disruption in refining would have huge effects on the prices of petroleum products. Refineries are very expensive and complex. They cannot be scaled up quickly unless there is idle capacity to bring back online.