Introducing the star of the show: Oil

Over the last few weeks I have done focus sections about fracking and nuclear power, I am now going to focus on petroleum. To get us started a few facts about the state of play in 2012.

The World of Petroleum in 2012 - Summarised from the US International Energy Statistics Website

Production

• Total world production was 89,000 barrels per day
• The biggest oil producting region is the Middle East: supplying 27,000 barrels a day.
• The two biggest oil producing countries are the USA and Saudi Arabia (both producing around 11,000 barrels a day.
• For comparison, the UK produced about 1000 barrels per day in 2012, 90% of this is from offshore deposits

Consumption

• The Asia and Oceania region consumes the most oil: 28,000 barrels a day. 
• USA is the biggest single consumer of oil: 18,000 barrels a day. This is more than South America and Africa combined.
• Oil consumption between 2007-2012 has plateaued or decreased in North America, South American, Europe, Eurasia and Africa.
• Oil consumption in the Middle East and Asia and Oceania has significantly (by more than 20%) increased in the last five years between 2007-2012. 

Imports vs. Exports

• Asia and Oceania are by far the biggest importers of oil (more than three times any other region) 
• Asia and Oceania have had the biggest growth in amount of imports in the last five years 
• Asia and Oceania are the biggest exporters of oil in 2012. Starting to see a pattern here...

Well you'll be pleased to hear I am done bombarding you with facts! There probably isn't anything too surprising here, it is just helpful to put some numbers on things so that when reports talk about 'thousands of barrels a day' etc we have an understanding of what this compares to. Over the next week or two I will look into the global petroleum market and its a future. 

A quick Google of 'oil' is likely to spring up some images from the Popeye cartoon of his one true love: Olive Oil. I am definitely going to need a spinach fix to help with the research on this topic! Fond memories...

Courtesy of popeye.com