Where does all the Oil go?

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Where does all the Oil go?

In a world seemingly driven by oil, just where does all of the oil that is pumping into the world market go?

It is an interesting question because many of us will be surprised to see that the biggest consumers of oil are not you and I - as I first imagined. Here's what we were able to find out from the International Energy Agency (IEA). According to their latest release of their "Key World Energy Statistics - 2006 " publication:

by 2004, Oil comprised 34.3% of the world's total energy market - compared to 45% in 1973. Increases in Natural Gas and Nuclear energy production were largely to blame for reducing the world's dependancy on oil in these years.
North America, incidently, consumes approximately 25% of the World Energy Supply and fully 2.5 times the energy consumed by the Former Soviet Union.
Top Producers, Exporters, and Importers of Crude Oil:

Producers, Exporters, and Importers of Crude Oil

So how much oil goes to Transport?

Well, in 2004 - just 57% went to Transportation - which is comprised of Trucking, Airplace Fuels, and Passenger Vehicles...by the way, "Other sectors" here includes agriculture, commercial and public service, residential and non-specified.

Surprisingly, the report didn't break out "Transport" - so we dug further.

Segway now to the to North American Transportation Statistics Database where a precise accounting is kept of fuel oil consumption by Personal and Transit vehicles, by rail, and by Aviation.

Still no breakout of Passenger vs.Trucking fuel use here but if one can reasonably assume that Trucks used 99%+ of North America's diesel in 2004 due to the absence of our new Ultra-low Sulfur Diesel laws. By jov I think we have a conclusion here.

In summary

Passenger vehicles use 62% (based on North American consumption stats) of the 57% (Worldwide statistic) of Crude Oil used for "Transport" - so we can interpolate that in 2004, roughly 35% of all North American Crude Oil was used by passenger cars.

Now this figure isn't meant to be a hard and fast statistic, but it is a useful approximation for future discussions of the potential impact of Air Powered Passenger Cars. So unless someone out there can find a better number - we'll use it for now - and revise it here if we need to.

I just hope you aren't completely disgusted by what passes for research in my walkthrough...

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