The United States is the third-largest producer of oil in the world, but it is by far the world's largest consumer of oil, using about twice as much oil as it produces. The highly-localized distribution of oil around the world and differences in regulatory approaches to drilling mean that among large economies there is enormous variation in the ratio of oil produced to oil consumed: Japan, Germany and South Korea must import practically all the oil that they use, while Canada and Russia are heavy users as well as net exporters of oil.

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