RE:Makes a person wonder....The US also imported an average of 7.2 million barrels of oil per day (3 and a bit comes from Canada).
Most of the US exported oil has been going to China.
Until Obama changed the law, the US was prohibited from exporting oil
The US had about 16.165 mb of refinery demand in the most recent week.
That is the oil demand center. Those refineries get the oil they need to make their products.
Those products are then sold dometically, and internationally.
The oil their refineries don't want (wrong weight etc), is exported. The oil they need, but can't get with the US, is imported.
Oil transit routes have changed thanks to the European and US sanctions on Russia - but all that really means, is more feul is used moving the oil to more distant buyers - and the customer pays that cost.
The Saudi's may be upset, but not by having different customers. It looks like they may be upset by the US recent tendancy to put out bias reporting though its previously unbais major media channels. (thus yesterday's OPEC decision to exclude various US media from the June OPEC meeting).
The US may even be putting out misleading EIA numbers.
Look at the unaccounted for oil (adjustment) figure this week - its almost 2 million barrels per day - ie nearly twice Libyan production. Its more than a day of US total crude production! Thats not an adjustment, or balancing figure. It is something different, and is may be making the EIA numbers look completely different than they would otherwise.
This "adjustment" is also highly varriable from week to week - meaning the EIA's attempted explaination is BS (they said its Natural Gas liquids that get added back later in production). IF that were true, this number would be reasonably constant from week to week - its not.
If the Saudi's are upset - and they wouldn't of banned US media if they weren't - they may be upset at suspected US oil and gas data manipulation. It will be interesting to see what they may do about it on the weekend.
One option would be to stop using US traded contracts to set the benchmark oil price (WTI for example).
We already know the BRICS are going to be talking about setting up their own currency at their next meeting.