Oil Producers and Consumers

Oil consumption rose by just under 1% worldwide between 2018 and 2019, versus 1.5% between 2017 and 2018. It has been steadily increasing over the last ten years but fell short of the symbolic threshold of 100 million barrels per day in 2019. The United States, China and India were the largest consumers of oil (40% of the world total). Consumption in Europe dipped but remained stable overall.

The United States continued to ride the wave of shale oilRefers to liquid hydrocarbons extracted from oil shale (see definition) by heating, pyrolysis or hydrogenation. production, increasing output by more than 10% between 2018 and 2019, after a jump of nearly 17% from 2017 to 2018. This confirmed the country’s position as the world’s foremost oil producer, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia, which were neck and neck. The United States was also the world’s leading gas producer. In 2019, BrentBrent is the name given to a relatively light crude oil made from a blend of crudes from 19 oil fields in the North Sea... crude traded at an average price of $64 a barrelUnit of volume measurement for crude oil that is equivalent to approximately 159 liters (0.159 cubic meters)... , down nearly 10% on 2018.

Estimated oil reserves are the amount of economically recoverable crude oilOil that has not been refined. at a given time. Estimated reserves remained virtually unchanged between 2018 and 2019. There were no movements in the ranking of countries by reserves, with the “top 5” still formed by Venezuela (currently experiencing serious production problems), Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran and Iraq.