China’s Retaliatory Tariffs on Crude Likely to Push US Exports Lower in 2025

HOUSTON, Feb 6 (Reuters) – China’s retaliatory tariffs on the United States may cause U.S. oil exports to decline in 2025 for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, after growth plateaued last year.

Exports of U.S. crude have surged more than 10 times since it lifted a 40-year federal ban on the export of domestic oil in 2015. That has helped United States become the world’s third-largest exporter behind Saudi Arabia and Russia, blunting the global impact of production cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies.

While China’s appetite for U.S. oil has diminished in recent years thanks to discounted Russian and Iranian oil, exports were 166,000 barrels per day in 2024, accounting for nearly 5% of all U.S. crude exports, according to ship-tracking data from Kpler.

U.S. crude export growth stalled in 2024, rising just 0.6% or 24,000 bpd in 2024, to average 3.8 million bpd, according to Kpler, as…