Has fracking eliminated US dependency on Middle Eastern oil?
U.S. oil imports from the Middle East have declined by two-thirds over the last twenty years. Last year the U.S. relied on the region for 10.5% of its imports.
The decline, accelerated by a boom in the use of hydraulic fracturing over the last ten years, has reduced the country's vulnerability to the kind of supply disruption experienced in the mid-1970s with an Arab-led embargo on oil exports. But the world economy, and many other U.S. allies, remain dependent on stable supplies from the region. Europe gets about 20% of its oil from the region.
Those ties and other factors—terrorism, Iran's nuclear ambitions and American commitments to Israel's security—have kept the region a focus of concern for policy makers despite reduced direct U.S. dependence on its oil supplies.
