Full Title: Cross-Border Energy Trade in North America: Present and Potential
Author(s): Paul W. Parfomak, Richard J. Campbell, Robert Pirog, Michael Ratner, Phillip Brown, John Frittelli, Marc Humphries
Publisher(s): Congressional Research Service
Publication Date: January 1, 2017
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Description (excerpt):
The United States, Canada, and Mexico in many ways comprise one large, integrated market for energy commodities. Canada, for example, is the single largest foreign supplier of crude oil to the United States, and the United States is Canada’s sole crude oil customer. Both Mexico and Canada are major buyers of petroleum products refined in the United States. A growing trade in natural gas produced in the United States is also increasingly important to the energy relationship among the three countries. Trade in the other energy commodities—electricity, natural gas liquids, and coal—is comparatively small, but regionally important. Altogether, the value of the energy trade between the United States and its North American neighbors exceeded $140 billion in 2015, with $100 billion in U.S. energy imports and over $40 billion in exports.
The United States’ energy trade relationships with Canada and Mexico are increasingly complex. They have been undergoing fundamental change in recent years—largely due to technological advancements in the petroleum and natural gas sectors creating new competition for energy supplies and new market interconnections. Consequently, while energy policies in one country have inevitably affected the others, their cross-cutting effects in the future are difficult to predict. Nonetheless, a review of the recent trade data highlights several key market developments.