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ENERGY MYTHS
MYTH 2: SAUDI ARABIA PROVIDES THE MOST OIL TO AMERICA
 The
largest percentage of respondents believes that we are overly reliant on Middle
Eastern oil, particularly from Saudi Arabia.
The reality, however, is far different. Though we are accustomed to believing
that American energy security rests in the hands of Saudi sheikhs, in fact Canada
is America’s chief foreign supplier of crude oil and petroleum products,
supplying the U.S. with more than 2.18 million barrels daily. Mexico is next
on the list, providing more than 1.66 million barrels of oil daily. Saudi Arabia,
with daily imports to the U.S. in the range of 1.5 million barrels, ranks third,
followed by Venezuela, with nearly the same amount (see Table 2).
All told, less than 20 percent of U.S. petroleum imports come from the Persian
Gulf, and just 11 percent of the total amount of petroleum Americans consume.
Canada and Mexico, on the other hand, provide 28 percent of our imports and
almost 19 percent of our total oil consumption. If the United States can be
said to be beholden to any region for its oil supplies, it would not be the
Middle East but the Western Hemisphere. Fully two-thirds of the crude oil and
petroleum products that the United States uses come from the Americas.
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