U.S. Oil Import Dependence: declining no matter how you measure it

U.S. oil import dependence is an issue perhaps as hotly debated as it is loosely defined. As discussed in a This Week in Petroleum article published in 2008, there is more than one way of measuring it. Different methods of calculation yield different results. But whichever way it is defined, U.S. dependence on imported oil has dramatically declined since peaking in 2005, continuing a trend that was beginning to emerge the last time This Week In Petroleum examined the issue. By the broadest measure, U.S. dependence on imported oil fell below the 50 percent mark last year for the first time since 1997. To put it succinctly, discrepancies in the way dependence is assessed arise because oil, for the most part, is imported as crude oil, but is consumed as refined products, of which crude oil is the main but not the only input - hence the need to clarify whether dependence is assessed at the output/consumption level or at the input level, and in the latter case what range of inputs is included as a basis for comparison. Two of the most common and straightforward definitions measure dependence as the ratio of total net oil imports (including crude and products) to total product consumption, or much more narrowly as the ratio of net imported crude oil to net crude oil inputs to refineries.