Which Country is the Largest Exporter of Oil?

The US produces more oil than any other country on Earth, but it’s Saudi Arabia that keeps the world moving.

As of the most recent data for 2025, Saudi Arabia remains the world's number one exporter of oil.

While the United States leads global production, accounting for roughly 21% of the world's output, it consumes the vast majority of what it produces domestically. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, exports a far larger share of its total output, consistently ranking as the top exporter by both volume and value.

In the Statistical Review of World Energy, a comprehensive annual report produced by the Energy Institute in collaboration with KPMG and Kearney, Andy Brown, President of the Energy Institute, and Dr. Nick Wayth, CEO of the Energy Institute, explain: "Geopolitical tensions further complicate the energy outlook.

"Energy security and affordability remain central concerns competing with the need for climate action…amid this turbulence, energy remains indispensable to human activity and development."

The 74th edition of the report details a global energy landscape navigating record-high demand and intensifying geopolitical disruption. While the energy transition continues, 2024 was marked by a "disorderly" shift where both renewable energy and fossil fuels simultaneously reached record highs.

In 2024, the US remained the world's largest oil producer at 21% of global output, breaching 20 million barrels per day for the first time. Saudi Arabia, though its production dipped slightly, remains the world's top single exporter of crude oil. The Middle East overall is responsible for 40% of all global crude exports.

A notable milestone was reached when US production became "broadly equal to the combined output of Saudi Arabia and the Russian Federation."

Together, the top five exporters – Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States, the UAE and Canada – supply more than 50% of the world's total crude oil shipments.

Why can't the US refine its own oil?

Despite being the world's largest producer, the United States remains a major oil importer. The reason is not a shortage of crude, but a structural "mismatch" between the type of oil the country produces and the infrastructure designed to process it.

Most US shale output, from fields like the Permian Basin, is light, sweet crude, low in density and sulphur. Yet, approximately 70% of US refining capacity is optimised for heavy, sour crude.

Most refineries were built in the 1970s and 80s, when global supplies of light crude were declining. The industry invested billions into complex refining units capable of turning "sludgy," lower-quality oil from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela into high-value products like gasoline and diesel. Upgrading a single refinery to process light crude can cost between US$100m and US$1bn, making the switch economically impractical.

Major production zones like the Permian (Texas/New Mexico) and Bakken (North Dakota) are inland, while coastal refineries often lack pipeline access to these fields. California, a top-five producing state, imports roughly 75% of its crude because it is largely disconnected from domestic pipeline networks.

Adding further cost is the Jones Act of 1920, which requires cargo shipped between two US ports to be carried on American-built, American-owned and American-crewed vessels. Operating a Jones Act tanker can cost nearly three times more than a foreign ship – as much as US$75,000 per day.

This means it is often cheaper to import oil from Saudi Arabia to a New Jersey refinery than to ship it from Texas.

Major refiners like Phillips 66 and Valero have long highlighted their Gulf Coast "complexity" – the ability to process discounted heavy crude into high-value fuel – as a competitive advantage. Phillips 66 announced the closure of its Los Angeles Refinery in late 2024, with CEO Mark Lashier stating the facility's "long-term sustainability was no longer viable given the evolving market dynamics in California."

New refinery construction remains considered a difficult investment given high environmental permitting hurdles and forecasts of declining long-term petroleum demand.

The EIA projects that refinery closures combined with rising consumption will reduce US petroleum inventories to their lowest levels since 2000 by the end of 2026.

The future is uncertain as the Strait of Hormuz, which facilitates 25% of all global seaborne oil trade, experiences near-total commercial disruption. As joint US-Israeli strikes cause Brent crude to spike to US$80 per barrel, market analysts note that North American production growth continues to serve as a critical buffer against a total global energy collapse.