Crude Oil Exports and Imports - By: Punjabi Sunil

In January 2010, the prices for Crude oil and gasoline fell. Crude oil was sold at $77.74 per barrel. China has become the world's largest oil consuming country followed by the United States of America. The other major oil consuming countries are India, Japan, Brazil, France, Mexico, etc. These countries consume nearly 2.1 million barrels to 20.7 million barrels per day. Those counties, which are not into oil production or those, which are unable to meet the domestic needs require Crude oil imports. The oil demand in future is likely to increase due to the transportation sector and numerous other industries.

In the year 2009, the percentage of Crude oil imports played a significant role as the United States of America imported 91.2% of Crude oil from 15 major Crude oil exporting countries. To name a few, they are Algeria, Angola, Kuwait, United Kingdom, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Brazil. No tariff duties are levied by the U.S on the Crude oil imports from Columbia, Mexico and Canada and counties that have signed an agreement with U.S. The cutback led to recession and lower Crude oil prices. There are major fluctuations in the demand and supply of Crude oil. The major oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia did not earn much revenue last year and the profits were just marginal when compared to its profits from Crude oil exports in the previous years.

Just the way, the price of other commodities gets influenced by a lot of factors with regards to demand and supply; oil prices too are also influenced and result in major swings and fluctuation in prices. When demand for Crude oil exceeds the production capacity of major oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran and Kuwait, there is a rise in the price of the Crude oil. The end users face difficulty due to the increase in the price.

Digging oil wells, extracting oil from the earth's surface and refining it involves huge investment and the oil refineries implement new technologies and use advanced techniques and machines to meet the growing demand for Crude oil, which is not quite possible if the price is not increased. Meanwhile other industries and individual consumers cut back on the oil consumption leading to a slight change in the percentage of Crude oil imports and Crude oil exports. With the increase in price, the oil industries will implement new techniques and increase the productivity level of oil, which will slowly restore the demand supply balance.

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ensures a fair return on investments for the investors in the petroleum industry and regular income for the oil producers. It also regulates and controls the oil markets thus ensuring that consumers are supplied with petroleum and by-products on a regular basis. OPEC member countries manage half of the world's Crude oil exports and most of the oil reserves belong to them.

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