LogFAQs > #960275079

There are a lot of different factors. All oil is not the same, it varies quite a bit, one example is between heavy and light crude. Light and heavy crude both have a lot of demand and are used in tons of different products. The US is mostly geared toward refining heavy crude, however most of the production from the Shale revolution is light crude. We simply do not produce enough of both light and heavy crudes to meet demand, or have the infrastructure to solely refine and use all of our own oil. Building new refineries takes a ton of money, a lot of time, and environmentalists will fight you tooth and nail no matter where you put it. So no matter what, we will still be importing oil from other countries.

Location of the demand is also very important. Cities and the coasts is where most the demand is, however most the oil is produced in the middle of nowhere Texas, North Dakota, etc. A lot of times it is cheaper to just ship in oil to the coasts from other countries, rather than having to pipe or truck the oil out there from the middle of the country.

If we didn't export oil, this light crude would still be sitting in the ground, and global oil prices would be higher as supply would be lower. By exporting the oil to countries that want it, it lowers the global price of oil by increasing the supply.

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