Posted as part of Facebook’s efforts to curb the online dissemination of misinformation, reports in late January and early February 2021 claim that the United States’ from the highest exports in oil and natural gas to the lowest in one week. ‘ It is considered the highest and lowest export levels in recent US history, and it is untrue.
Examples of postings that make this claim can be found here, here and here.
It appears that the earliest version of the claim was posted on Facebook on January 28, 2021 (here). According to data published here by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the United States exported on average nearly 3.4 million barrels per day for the week ending January 22, compared to nearly 2.3 million the previous week.
For the week ending January 29, the United States exported nearly 3.5 million barrels per day, followed by just over 2.6 million barrels per day for the week ending February 5 (here).
These amounts were not the “highest” ever in oil exports, as the posts claim. U.S. oil exports last peaked at nearly 4.5 million barrels per day for the week ending December 27, 2019.
These amounts were also not the “lowest” ever, as the posts claim. Between February 1991 and the time this article was published, US crude oil exports reached a low of 10,000 barrels per day between November 2002 and April 2005 (here). The latest reported export figure of almost 2.6 million barrels per day (for the week ending 5 February 2021) is almost 260 times the amount.
At the end of 2015, then-President Barack Obama lifted a four-decade crude export ban (here, here). The EIA data clearly show that the increase is in exports.
Until recently, petroleum exports were dominated by products such as gasoline and diesel, but this has changed since the U.S. shale revolution that accelerated drilling and oil extraction, raising overall U.S. production to a record level.
There have been particular claims of alleged declines in U.S. oil and gas exports during the first few weeks of President Joe Biden’s administration. An explanation from Reuters on how Biden’s presidency will transform the American energy landscape is available here.
President Biden’s has promised to ban new drilling permits on federal lands and waters to combat global climate change. Such a ban would mean that domestic oil production would tend to zero over a matter of years.
Biden believes that climate change is an existential threat to the planet, and that a transition to fossil fuels could be an economic opportunity if the United States moves fast enough to become a leader in clean energy technology.
As for natural gas, Reuters was unable to verify this portion of the Facebook claim because the EIA does not publish U.S. export data on a weekly basis. The most recent monthly data is available for November 2020 and can be viewed here.
VERDICT
Untrue. US oil exports did not go from an overall high to an everyday low during the first few weeks of the Biden government.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.