America imported no oil from Venezuela last week.

[MRubio]

America's once-robust imports of crude oil from Venezuela have ground to a halt because of Trump administration sanctions and chaos gripping the OPEC nation.

The United States imported exactly zero barrels of crude from Venezuela last week, according to government statistics. That's never happened since the US Energy Information Administration began tracking this weekly metric in 2010.

It marks a sharp decline from the prior week, when the United States imported 112,000 barrels per day from Venezuela. The plunge in oil shipments from Venezuela helped lift US oil prices above $60 a barrel this week for the first time since November.

But US Gulf Coast refineries have long relied on Venezuela's heavy grade of crude to churn out gasoline, jet fuel and diesel that keep the American economy humming. Just a year ago, Venezuela shipped more than half a million barrels of oil per day to US shores, making the Latin American country one of America's largest suppliers.

"I suspect it will stay at zero. It's a big problem for US refiners," said Ryan Fitzmaurice, energy strategist at Rabobank. "We really do need that heavy crude that comes from Venezuela. We're finding it difficult to source it from elsewhere."

The United States has never gone a full month without importing oil from Venezuela since the EIA started measuring this monthly data in 1973.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/21/business/venezuela-oil-imports-united-states/index.html

[Socal31]

1. The US becoming the top oil producer in the world...

Is one of the most under-reported domestic stories in my life.

[MRubio]

2. Indeed it is Socal31

I spent more years than I can to remember in the oilfield. I studied under, and worked for, a guy who was a workmate and disciple of M. King Hubbert at Shell Oil. Are you familiar with Hubbert's name? If not, you've probably heard of his theory, Peak Oil.

Here's his world production curve estimate proposed in 1956.



Won't bore everyone with the gory details, but for a few decades, Hubbert was spot-on with worldwide production topping out in 1970, at least as far as production depending on standard industry practices known to him at the time. Peak Oil theory and the potential ramifications for world economies has now fallen out of favor, but when it's all said and done, I still think his theories of the dramatic dropoff in production will still hold true.

[Socal31]

3. I am aware, absolutely. Thanks for the refresher!

That prediction had no way of forseeing Baakken and the dawn of hydraulic fracturing.

You are obviously the expert here. Do you agree that peak oil has been pushed back by at least 30 years?

[MRubio]

4. The expert? Please....

My dad always said that an expert is a guy who learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing. LOL.

I'm most certainly NOT qualfied to comment on how fracking will affect Peak Oil.

I got out of the oilfield almost 20 years ago. IIRC, the Baakken was just making noise, and hydraulic fracturing was picking up steam as well. I seem to recall doing some work on some wells in North-central Louisiana that had been fracked by a small production company out of Houston, but the details escape me now. Those were some of the first I was exposed to.

After selling my company, I walked out the door and never looked back so I've not kept up on any of the fracking technology advancements, and most importantly, what types of reservoir rock and reservoir fluids lend themselves to fracking. Having said that, if the US is any indication of the additional production that can be achieved, I'd say, yes, peak oil has been pushed back at least 30 years. perhaps much more.

One thing I am certain of though is that, like Hubbert predicted, eventually all the "easy" oil will not only have been found, but will have been produced by the latest technology and when that day arrives, production worldwide will drop dramatically. It will be a terrible shock to world economies if they've not leveraged away from that one gallon of refined hydrocarbon liquid that can shove a 10,000 pound vehicle 20 miles down the road.