How Am I Supposed to Live Without You – U.S. Refiners Using Persian Gulf Crude Seek Alternatives

U.S. refineries are, of course, far less dependent on crude oil from the Middle East than they were before the Shale Revolution and the ramp-up in Western Canadian production. But the ongoing war on Iran and the cutoff in oil supplies from the Persian Gulf is forcing several East Coast, Gulf Coast and West Coast refiners to look elsewhere for the mostly medium-sour crude they had been sourcing from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait before recent hostilities started and the Strait of Hormuz was shut down to most shipping. In today’s RBN blog, we look at which U.S. refineries had been receiving Persian Gulf oil, the qualities of that crude, and the alternative sources of replacement oil — at least until the Middle East returns to normal.

U.S. imports of crude oil from the Persian Gulf have experienced many ups and downs over the past 60-plus years, rising from about 500 Mb/d in the early 1960s to a then-record 2.4 MMb/d in 1977, then falling to less than 250 Mb/d in the mid-1980s — mostly due to new Alaska North Slope production and a post-embargoes shift to non-OPEC alternatives. Another round of rising imports from the Persian Gulf followed, however, and by 2001 a new record (more than 2.6 MMb/d) had been set, followed by a gradual and then accelerating decline as the Shale Era took hold. By 2025, the U.S. was receiving just under 500 Mb/d, about as much as it did when JFK was taking office and The Beatles were playing their first gigs.

To put that in perspective, U.S. crude oil imports from the Persian Gulf accounted for only 8% of the 6.2 MMb/d of total imports in 2025 and only 3% of the 16.1 MMb/d of U.S. refinery input last year, compared to 17% of the 15.1 MMb/d of refinery input in 2001, when imports from Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors peaked. 

As shown in the three charts in Figure 1 below, U.S. imports of crude oil from the four Persian Gulf producers (not including Iran, which last sent small volumes of crude to the U.S. in 2023) declined through most of the early 2020s (stacked layers), from 699 Mb/d in 2020 to 491 Mb/d in 2025. But imports to PADD 5 (West Coast; right chart) have remained steady and last year the region was the #1 importer from the Persian Gulf for the third year in a row, receiving an average of 230 Mb/d. PADD 3 (Gulf Coast; middle chart) started out this decade as the top importer, taking 362 Mb/d in 2020 — and topping PADD 5’s 283 Mb/d that year— but by 2025 the volumes sent to the Gulf Coast had fallen to only 176 Mb/d. Persian Gulf deliveries to refineries in PADD 1 (East Coast; left chart) averaged 85 Mb/d last year, the second-highest level in the 2020s.