US, once a victim of Arab oil embargos, now the world's largest oil exporter

United States is now the largest oil exporter in the world, upending decades-old orders long dominated Saudi Arabia and Russia. This?shift tightens American firms' grip on global energy markets, as Washington's War with Iran reshapes international energy trade. The United States' rise to the top of the oil exporters list is a dramatic reversal. For decades, America was reliant on Middle Eastern oil and had to endure an oil embargo imposed in 1973 by some OPEC countries as a retaliation for U.S. support for?Israel.

After 2010, the U.S. fortunes changed when the oil and gas production from its shale deposits soared. It became the top gas producer in the world, and then top oil.

The U.S. is now the largest oil exporter in the world. This is due to the U.S. - Iran war, which has disrupted Saudi oil exports from February 2026. Russian oil exports have also been affected by the U.S. sanctions against Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine and the U.S. drone attacks on Russia.

Data from ship tracking service Vortexa shows that U.S. crude and fuel exports grew to 10.5 million barrels a day in May, a result of high production and the release strategic reserves. This makes the U.S. top exporter of the world for the third consecutive month. According to calculations by Vortexa, Russian exports were 7 million barrels per day in May. Saudi Arabian exports, on the other hand, stood at 5,9 million barrels per day.

According to Vortexa, Saudi Arabia will export 8.1 million barrels per day in 2025. The United States will ship out 6.6 millions barrels per day, and Russians are expected to export 5.8 million barrels per day.

Michelle Brouhard is the head of policy for ship tracking company Kpler. She said that Washington has a tool it didn't know they had prior to the Iran War -- energy exports.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies have traditionally held a strong price-setting power over the oil market. Donald Trump, the U.S. president, has long criticized OPEC's manipulation of oil markets. In May, one of the group's biggest members, United Arab Emirates, quit the organization after almost 60 years. Washington will have a new tool to use in negotiations with its allies and enemies, as well as its military dominance and financial market dominance thanks to the U.S. Dollar's status as the world reserve currency.

Brouhard added that the U.S. is the world's largest crude oil supplier to Europe, and second in terms of distillates. EU officials who welcomed the U.S. gas and oil boom initially as an alternative supply to Russia and Middle Eastern countries have become more sceptical and warn of the risks of becoming too reliant on American companies.

The warning came at the same time as the EU and the U.S. administration were fighting over tariffs on trade and environmental regulations.

Moscow also struggles to conceal its frustration. Igor Sechin said that the U.S. oil companies would be the biggest beneficiaries of the Strait of Hormuz closure, according to Igor Sechin. He is the head of Rosneft, the Kremlin's major oil company and a close ally of Vladimir Putin.

Saudi Arabia and Russia had been lagging behind U.S. producers in terms of production growth long before the U.S. war with Iran began. Since 2000, the United States' crude and liquids production has almost tripled. It now stands at 22 million bpd. Saudi crude and liquids production has fluctuated between 10 and 12 million bpd, depending on OPEC quotas from 2000 to 2026. Russian oil and fluids production grew from 6 million to 10 millions bpd in the years 2000-2010, then grew another 2 million bpd over the 2010s. However, since 2020 it has stagnated or declined below 10,000,000 bpd.

The U.S. oil boom has largely been responsible for the growth in global oil demand over the last 15 years.

In 2015, after 40 years of a ban on oil exports, the United States lifted the ban, allowing its oil boom to reach the rest of the world. In just 10 years it became the largest oil exporter in the world, proving the skeptics that growth would be temporary as the fields depleted wrong.

The U.S. boom is driven primarily by profit and depends on private companies' decisions, unlike in Saudi Arabia or Russia where the government sets production and export goals.

U.S. companies will increase production when oil prices go up, helping to bring down prices. Kenneth Medlock III is a fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy and specializes in Energy and Resource Economics. He said that when prices are low, U.S. companies will reduce output which will increase prices.

He said: "In many respects, it is similar to what OPEC, Saudi Arabia, and other countries have done with spare production capacity. But it's more a'market mechanism' than a strategy device." Since the Ukraine conflict began in 2022, European countries have relied heavily on the United States. This year, the continent has taken about 47% of U.S. crude oil exports, up from 37% last year.

Asian countries that used to purchase the majority of their crude oil from the Middle East are now also increasingly dependent on U.S. supplies. About 46% of U.S. crude oil exports were from Asia in May, up from 37% the previous year.

(source: Reuters)