Even before the shale revolution got underway, US net imports were falling. The data below is from the Weekly Petroleum Status Report and is in thousand barrels per day.
This chart shows net crude oil and petroleum products imports. Net imports peaked in 2006 and started to fall in earnest in 2008. They continued to fall until 2010 when the three month average increased sharply and the annual average leveled out for about a year. Then as the Light Tight Oil revolution got underway in 2011, net imports started to fall again.
The chart above shows net imports bottom out in late spring, March and April and heads back down again in June. Below is the last year of that chart amplified.
But in December of 2014 net imports broke their trend and headed sharply up, about four months earlier than normal. Much of this increase in imports had to be caused by declining US production, though part of it could be caused by increased consumption because of low prices.
Related: Bearishness Continues Among Oil Industry Experts
The EIA's Petroleum Supply Monthly is out with US and individual states production numbers for November 2014. Below are some charts from that data. The data is in thousand barrels per day with the last data point November 2014.
US, down 31 kbd to 9,020,000 bpd. This is the first time the US has had a monthly decline that wasn't blamed on a weather event in quite a while.
Texas, up 48 kbd to 3,403,000 bpd. Because of Texas's reporting procedures the EIA has to guess at their oil and gas production. And their guess is that Texas oil production is behaving as if oil were still $100 a barrel. I believe there will be some big revisions in this data in a few months.
North Dakota, up 3 kbd to 1,187,000 bpd. At least they get North Dakota right.
Related: U.S. Crude Inventories Reach Highest Levels Since 1982
Alaska, up 17 kbd to 517,000 bpd. Alaska always bottoms out in August, for summer maintenance, and peaks in December. The spike down in January 2011 was due to the pipeline leak and had to shut down for several days.
GOM, down 62 kbd to 1,383,000 bpd. They had expected a lot more out of the Gulf of Mexico by now. The EIA predicted 2 million barrels per day from the GOM by 2016. I just don't think that is going to happen.
By Ron Patterson
Source - http://peakoilbarrel.com/
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Ron Patterson is a retired computer engineer. He worked in Saudi Arabia for five years, two years at the Ghazlan Power Plant near Ras Tanura… More