United States Oil Reserves, Production and Consumption Statistics (2024)

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United States Oil Reserves, Production and Consumption Statistics? ›

The United States has proven reserves equivalent to 4.9 times its annual consumption. This means that, without imports, there would be about 5 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).

In 2021, U.S. proved reserves of crude oil and lease condensate increased 16% from 2020, totaling 44.4 billion barrels, according to our recently released Proved Reserves of Crude Oil and Natural Gas in the United States, Year-End 2021 report.

The USA consumes slightly less oil than the USA produces, but imports and exports roughly half of what the USA consumes.

Also in 2022, the United States produced² about 20.08 million b/d of petroleum and consumed³ about 20.01 million b/d.

In 2022, the United States consumed an average of about 20.01 million barrels of petroleum per day, or a total of about 7.3 billion barrels of petroleum. Learn more: How much of the crude oil produced in the United States is consumed in the United States?

Oil Reserves in the United States

The United States has proven reserves equivalent to 4.9 times its annual consumption. This means that, without imports, there would be about 5 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) International Energy Outlook 2023 (IEO2023), the global supply of crude oil, other liquid hydrocarbons, and biofuels is expected to be adequate to meet the world's demand for liquid fuels through 2050.

You see, the U.S. does produce enough oil to meet its own needs, but it is the wrong type of oil. Crude is graded according to two main metrics, weight and sweetness. The weight of oil defines how easy it is to refine, or break down into its usable component parts, such as gasoline, jet fuel and diesel.

In 2022, the US led global oil consumption with 19 million barrels daily, while China followed with 14 million barrels. From 2012 to 2022, China and India exhibited the most significant growth in oil consumption, increasing by 42% and 41%, respectively.

What country uses the most oil? ›

In our February Short-Term Energy Outlook, we forecast a dip in production in early 2024 because winter weather caused some operators to shut in production. We forecast production will continue to decline through the second and third quarters of 2024.

World Oil Reserves

The world has proven reserves equivalent to 46.6 times its annual consumption levels. This means it has about 47 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).

Within the petroleum industry, proven crude oil reserves in the United States were 44.4 billion barrels (7.06×10⁹ m³) of crude oil as of the end of 2021, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves worldwide. As of 2022, it had proved reserves amounting to more than 303 billion barrels. The majority of this amount was held within the Orinoco Belt rock deposits in the form of oil sands.

Thanks to the shale oil boom, the US is now sitting on more oil reserves than Russia, which estimates as having 256 billion barrels of untapped oil. The next-richest countries in terms of oil after that are: Saud Arabia (212 billion), Canada (167 billion), Iran (143 billion) and Brazil (120 billion).

The world holds around 1.56 trillion barrels in proved crude oil reserves as of 2022. This is excluding oil sands. Since 1960, there has been a marked increase in oil reserves, especially in the decade between 1960 and 1970.