This week’s chart tracks crude oil imports into the European Union over the past five years, focusing on five of the bloc’s principal importers: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain.
Total EU crude imports have remained relatively constant across the period. What has changed is their composition. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, EU importers began reducing purchases of Russian crude well before the official embargo took effect in December 2022, while turning increasingly to the United States as a source of supply.
The shift underscores how quickly trade patterns adjusted to the war, with policy formalizing a reorientation that market participants had already begun. For further context, Dr. Anna Mikulska of the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources at its February 16, 2023 hearing on the war’s impact on European and global energy security.
From the EPRINC Chart of the Week archive.