The world’s largest oil importers in 2022 were China, United States, India, South Korea and Japan.

While Chinese oil imports grew at a year-on-year rate of 42%, to $365,512 million, the corresponding imports from the United States rose 48%, to $204,716 million.

According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), fuels are the group that initially showed the steepest drop after mid-2022, with crude oil and natural gas prices declining 33% and 67%, respectively, during the 12 months through May 2023.

Although the price of oil has since rebounded somewhat to above $90 per barrel, the initial drastic drop corresponded to the enormous impact of various global factors on the energy sector, along with a number of energy industry-specific factors.

In addition, according to the WTO, despite the rounds of production cuts announced by OPEC+ countries in April 2023, representing a reduction of more than 1 million barrels per day, there has been a significant increase in oil production by non-OPEC+ countries, as well as a substantial release of strategic oil reserves by the OECD.

Oil importers

Member countries have more than compensated for the cuts decided by OPEC+.

For their part, Western economic sanctions on Russian crude oil exports have mainly led to the redirection of these flows to countries such as China and India at a reduced price, meaning that their impact on global oil supply has been minimal while exerting a downward influence on global crude oil prices.

Who are the other major oil importers? India, with $173.516 billion and a year-on-year increase of 63%, followed by South Korea ($105.964 billion, +58%) and Japan ($101.652 billion, +61%).