U.S. Energy Exports To Mexico Near Record-High Levels

The United States exported crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas to Mexico worth nearly US$34 billion in 2019, just shy of the record-high value of energy exports in 2018, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday.  

According to data from the latest annual Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. imported energy products from Mexico worth US$13 billion last year, the EIA estimates showed.

The value of U.S. energy exports to Mexico exceeded the value of energy imports from Mexico in 2015, and the value of exports has remained higher than imports every year since then, as imports from Mexico dropped while U.S. petroleum exports surged.

Energy trade accounted for 13 percent of the value for all U.S. exports to Mexico and 4 percent of all U.S. imports from Mexico last year, the EIA estimates showed.

In imports, the largest trade is in crude oil, with U.S. crude oil imports from Mexico averaging 599,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2019, and Mexico the second-biggest source of crude oil for America, second only to Canada.

In exports, the U.S. exports a lot of gasoline and distillate fuel oil to Mexico. According to the EIA, the United States supplies more than half of Mexico’s gasoline consumption.

In July this year, U.S. President Donald Trump signed two permits for oil export infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas to boost exports of crude oil to Mexico. One of the permits is for NuStar Energy, which will operate pipelines under the Rio Grande that transport crude oil and refined products from Texas to Mexico. The other permit is for Kansas City Southern Railway Co., which will build and operate a railway bridge in the border town of Laredo.

Mexico is the biggest importer of U.S. petroleum, according to the Department of Energy. Last year, the U.S. shipped 1.2 million bpd of oil and products to Mexico, accounting for 14 percent of total exports, making the country the biggest recipient of U.S. petroleum, with Canada coming in second, taking in 1 million bpd in 2019.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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