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Data visualization: The US - From oil importer to oil exporter?

The US is currently importing significantly less crude oil and crude oil products than it did in 2005. Now if you were listening to the Presidential debates, then you probably heard Barack Obama take credit for this improvement. But the real driver has been improvements in technology, namely fracking and horizontal drilling. The chart below disaggregates the flow of petroleum into its constituent parts.


The US is certainly importing less crude oil than seven years ago. It is also now exporting significant quantities of refined crude products. The largest contributor to this shift comes from the distillate/diesel category. A lot of this diesel is going Rotterdam and from there to the rest of Europe. The switch from importing to exporting products isn't confined to diesel though, note how almost all the black arrows in the products section are now red.

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