The U.S. didn’t import any Saudi crude last week for the first time in 35 years, a reversal from just months ago when the Kingdom threatened to upend the American energy industry by unleashing a tsunami of exports into a market decimated by the pandemic.
The absence of deliveries follows a slump in crude shipments to the U.S. that left the desert kingdom in October. Since tankers from Saudi Arabia take about six weeks to reach import terminals on either the west or Gulf coasts, the drop is only starting to show up now. This is the first week America had no deliveries based on available weekly data through June 2010 from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. A longer history of monthly figures shows this is the first time there were no Saudi imports since September 1985.
Earlier this year, the oil producing countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and ten non-OPEC allies agreed to cut production by a record 9.7 million barrels a day after a brief production free-for-all that saw prices plunge.
