Asia depends on Middle East for 66 % of its oil imports
This post uses data from the inter area oil movement section of the BP Statistical Review published in June 2015. It is a continuation of an earlier post on Asian oil consumption and production
Global trade and Asia’s share
Total global oil trade steadily increased by 4.7% pa up to the US recession year of 2007, stagnated through the financial crisis but resumed growth in 2010, albeit at a much lower rate of 1.4% pa. In 2014, growth was only 0.5% while the volume of trade reached a record high of 56.7 mb/d.
Fig 1: Global oil trade and Asian oil imports
22.9 mb/d (40% of the global total) were imports into Asia, a whopping 9.6 mb/d up from 13.4 mb/d (30%) in 2001. That is +740 kb/d pa. Where did this oil come from?
Fig 2: Asian oil imports as part of global oil trade
Out of these 22.9 mb/d of Asian imports some 15.1 mb/d or 66% came from the Middle East, making Asia absolutely vulnerable to what is happening there.
Fig3: Asia oil imports time series
After the financial crisis in 2009 Asia’s total imports increased by an average of 4.7% pa (2014: 3.4%) while imports from the Middle East increased by only 2% (2014: 1%). This means that Asia has diversified its imports into West Africa, the Former Soviet Union, South & Central America and others. The share of the Middle East of total imports has therefore decreased from 73% in 2010 to 66% in 2014.
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