EIA Crude Oil Imports

EIA crude oil imports count foreign crude oil, unrefined petroleum, arriving in the 50 states and Washington DC. The publisher is the EIA, the U.S. energy data agency, through its Petroleum Supply Reporting System, its supply survey program. The series covers gross inflows before subtracting exports, including Foreign Trade Zones, with quantities corrected to 60 degrees Fahrenheit less basic sediment and water. It excludes domestic production, product imports like gasoline, bonded storage not yet withdrawn, and stocks beyond primary supply.

Weekly data cover Friday 7:01 a.m. Eastern to next Friday 7:00 a.m. Eastern, with filings due by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Monday. Tables appear at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Wednesday and full text at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Wednesday, shifting by 1 day in holiday weeks. Monthly census values, counts from all importers, cover a calendar month, are due by day 20 after month end and appear about 60 days later. Each release shows the week, a 4-week average and a year ago comparison within supply tables plus revisions.

Crude inflows move with refinery needs, domestic output and relative prices, split below into additive volumes.

• Total US crude imports: gross foreign crude inflow, including lease condensate mixed into the crude stream, but excluding gas plant liquids.
• Country of origin: original producing country plus port of entry, with sulfur percent and API gravity for each cargo.
• Nearby product imports: gasoline, distillate fuel, jet fuel and other oils reported alongside crude.
• Quality attributes: sulfur percent and API gravity, which shape refinery value.
• Net imports: gross imports minus exports, showing dependence after exports leave.

In a March 19, 2020 analysis, EIA showed total imports topped 10.1 million b/d in 2005. Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela supplied about 60% combined, with 12% to 16% each. By 2019 totals fell to 6.8 million b/d as domestic output rose. Canadian barrels rose instead to 3.8 million b/d, or 56% of imports, on refinery advantages as output elsewhere fell.

1. Collect and impute: gather Friday to Friday Form EIA-804 reports, edit them and fill gaps with smoothed past values from the same firm.
2. Sum sampled week: add reported plus imputed values across sampled firms to get weekly sum Ws.
3. Build ratio from monthly census data (Form EIA-814): divide the last final monthly total for all firms by the same month total for sampled firms. For example, 210,000 divided by 200,000 gives 1.05.
4. Smooth for imports: blend the fresh ratio with the prior smoothed ratio because weekly imports swing sharply. For example, a fresh ratio of 1.05 with a prior 1.04 and alpha of 0.20 gives 1.042.
5. Scale and publish: multiply the weekly sum by the smoothed ratio, then divide by 7 for thousand b/d. For example, a 42,000 thousand barrel weekly sum times 1.042 equals 43,764 thousand barrels, or 6,252 thousand b/d.