America is exporting five times more oil to the world than it did in 1995, according to federal data aggregated Friday by the American Enterprise Institute.
America surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia early last year as the world’s largest and fastest-growing producer of oil and natural gas, largely due to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” This caused American oil imports to decline and exports to rise. In 2007, America imported about 60 percent of its oil, but by 2014, the U.S. only imported 27 percent of its oil — that’s the lowest level since 1985, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
HISTORIC US Petroleum Exports Surged to Record High in May, @BarackObama Should Be Happy He Wanted to Double Exports pic.twitter.com/dWEHuCuhZu
— Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) August 5, 2016
Mark Perry, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, aggregated data from U.S. Department of Commerce into a chart.
America is now selling vast amounts of crude and refined oil to the world after repealing the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act in December. The original purpose of the act was to reduce the impact of potential oil embargoes by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Venezuela, a member of OPEC, was forced by its failing economy to accept its first shipment of American crude oil in early February, despite having some of the world’s largest petroleum reserves.
Exporting oil is expected to boost U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by $38 billion, reduce the trade deficit by $22 billion and add 300,000 new jobs by 2020, according to another study by ICF International and the American Petroleum Institute. Another study by the Aspen Institute estimates that the rapid growth of the U.S. oil industry could allow America to remain the world’s largest oil producer while creating up to 1.48 million jobs.
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