NEW YORK--U.S. crude oil output rose 16.9% from a year-earlier
in April, to 7.353 million barrels a day, the highest level since
February 1992, government data released Thursday show.
The rise of 1.063 million barrels a day was the biggest since
December and led to a 10% year-on-year drop in crude oil imports,
which dropped to their lowest April level since 1995, data from the
Energy Information Administration show.
As U.S. domestic crude oil output has surged with increased use
of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal techniques to extract crude
from shale deposits in North Dakota and elsewhere, more crude oil
exports have been trickling across the border to Canada, which is
the U.S.'s biggest source of oil imports, the data show.
Crude oil exports climbed to a record 132,000 barrels a day in
April, with all of the oil going to Canada, EIA data show. Exports
are broadly forbidden and allowed only under government
license.
U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.726 million barrels a day, up
3.6% from March, but 865,000 barrels a day below the year-earlier
level.
The U.S. imported 2.517 million barrels a day of Canadian crude
in April, near the March level and 4% more than in April 2012.
Imports from Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter,
dropped 13.8% in April from March and were 30% below the
year-earlier level, at a two-month low of 1.107 million barrels a
day.
Crude imports from the Persian Gulf were 19% below a year
earlier, at 1.795 million barrels a day, and accounted for 23.3% of
total crude imports, down from 25.8% a year earlier.
Imports from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries fell 13.8% from a year earlier, to 3.517 million barrels
a day. OPEC accounted for 45.5% of U.S. crude imports, down from
47.5% a year earlier.
Write to David Bird at david.bird@dowjones.com
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