1. Which countries supply crude oil and diesel to Germany, France, Spain and Italy?
Austria and Poland stand out: in 2025 Austria bought 57.2% of its crude from Kazakhstan and Poland 47.4% from Saudi Arabia, while in the other six countries the largest supplier's share ranged from 15.2% (the US in Spain) to 25.0% (Libya in Italy) (Eurostat, own calculation).
Read across a row to see a country's top two crude suppliers, its main source of diesel and heating oil, and how much came from the Gulf. “Gulf” here means the seven states the EIA groups as “Persian Gulf”: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Iran. Oman's export terminals lie outside the Strait of Hormuz, so it is not included.
| Country | Largest crude supplier 2025 | Second-largest crude supplier 2025 | Gulf share of crude 2025 | Largest diesel/heating oil supplier 2025 | Gulf share Q2 2026 (all three products) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | Norway (17.2%) | Libya (14.8%) | 6.3% | Netherlands (47.2%) | 2.8% |
| France | United States (22.1%) | Kazakhstan (14.9%) | 10.1% | Saudi Arabia (27.5%) | 6.2% |
| Spain | United States (15.2%) | Brazil (13.6%) | 10.7% | Italy (19.3%) | 5.1% |
| Italy | Libya (25.0%) | Azerbaijan (17.4%) | 12.4% | Saudi Arabia (47.0%) | 12.2% |
| Netherlands | United States (21.9%) | Norway (18.4%) | 9.1% | Belgium (47.7%) | 0.9% |
| Belgium | Norway (23.0%) | Kazakhstan (16.6%) | 3.0% | Netherlands (67.6%) | 1.2% |
| Austria | Kazakhstan (57.2%) | Libya (14.3%) | 16.0% | Germany (69.2%) | 1.2% |
| Poland | Saudi Arabia (47.4%) | Norway (33.1%) | 47.4% | Germany (35.2%) | 33.4% |
| EU-27 (sum of national reports) | Norway (13.9%) | United States (13.2%) | 12.4% | Netherlands (17.1%) | 7.6% |
Source: Eurostat nrg_ti_oilm (updated 10 Sep 2026), volumes in thousand tonnes; 2025 = January to December, Q2 2026 = April to June. Shares: own calculation. Gulf states: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Iran. The last column combines crude, diesel/heating oil and jet fuel by weight.
Download the GOS Hormuz Index as CSV (UTF-8, volumes by country, product and period)
Three caveats. Eurostat records the country that ships the oil, not where the crude was pumped, so diesel refined from Gulf crude in the Netherlands or India does not count as a Gulf import. The EU line adds up national reports, including trade between EU countries, which pulls its Gulf share down. And there are gaps: Spain has no crude figure for March 2026, and Finland reported only 1,456 thousand tonnes of crude for 2025, clearly incomplete, so it is left out of the index. The GOS Hormuz Exposure Index covers 19 EU countries; the Oil Reserves Monitor shows how many days of emergency stocks each one holds.
2. Is there a regional pattern in who buys oil from whom?
Yes: in 2025 the US was the top crude supplier in three of the eight countries (France, the Netherlands and Spain), Norway in two (Germany and Belgium), and Kazakhstan, Libya and Saudi Arabia in one each (Austria, Italy and Poland) (Eurostat, own calculation).
Norway was the top supplier for Germany (17.2%) and Belgium (23.0%), and Kazakhstan for Austria (57.2%); Kazakh crude also made up 13.7% of Germany's imports and 16.6% of Belgium's. US crude led in France (22.1%), the Netherlands (21.9%) and Spain (15.2%). Italy's mix was Mediterranean and Caspian: Libya 25.0%, Azerbaijan 17.4%, Kazakhstan 13.5%. Poland split its crude between Saudi Arabia (47.4%) and Norway (33.1%). Spain stood out for Latin America, with Brazil at 13.6% and Mexico at 12.3%.
For UK and US readers, two things stand out. British crude still counts in Europe: the UK was Germany's fifth-largest supplier, with 10.7%. And US crude, which barely reached Austria in 2025 (0.7%), was already among the top three suppliers in France, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and Belgium. Russia does not appear among the largest crude suppliers we analysed for 2025 (up to ten per country) in any of the eight countries. For where the UK and the US themselves buy, see Where UK and US oil comes from.
3. Where do Europe's diesel and jet fuel imports come from?
It depends on the country: Germany buys most of its imported diesel next door, while France and Italy buy far more of theirs directly from the Gulf. In 2025 the Netherlands and Belgium together supplied 71.2% of Germany's diesel and heating oil imports (47.2% and 24.0%), and only 7.2% came straight from the seven Gulf states. The two neighbours also trade heavily with each other: 67.6% of Belgium's diesel imports came from the Netherlands, and 47.7% of the Netherlands' from Belgium.
France is the clearest contrast: 27.5% of its diesel imports came from Saudi Arabia and 16.4% from the US, and the Gulf share was 33.2%. Italy went further, with 47.0% from Saudi Arabia and a Gulf share of 55.8%. Spain's pattern is different again: Italy (19.3%), Singapore (17.1%) and the Netherlands (14.3%) were its main suppliers.
The Gulf weighs most in jet fuel. Kuwait alone supplied 19.5% of the jet fuel in the EU countries' combined reports for 2025, second only to the Netherlands (24.7%) and ahead of India (9.1%); counting all seven Gulf states, the share was 29.5%, compared with 12.4% for crude. In France, Kuwait's share reached 43.9%. For the stocks behind these flows, see Diesel, heating oil, jet fuel: product stocks.
4. How did Europe's oil suppliers change in 2026?
The US became the largest crude supplier to EU countries in the second quarter of 2026, with 17.4% after 13.2% in 2025, while the seven Gulf states' share of crude, diesel and jet fuel imports fell from 13.2% to 7.6% (Eurostat, sum of national reports, own calculation). Europe was a small Gulf customer to begin with: the International Energy Agency (IEA) puts Europe's intake at around 600,000 barrels a day in 2025, just 4% of Hormuz exports.
- Germany: US share of crude up from 14.2% to 23.3%, now ahead of Kazakhstan and Norway; Guyana reached 8.8%.
- France: 39.6% of diesel imports from the US (2025: 16.4%). Kuwaiti jet fuel, 2,730 thousand tonnes in 2025, stopped in Q2; the US became the top jet fuel supplier with 26.1%.
- EU jet fuel: the US rose to second place with 13.9%.
- Against the trend: Poland still took 45.3% of its crude from Saudi Arabia (2,535.8 thousand tonnes), and Italy's Gulf share of diesel imports rose to 65.7%.
How could Saudi crude keep reaching Poland? The volumes fit a bypass: Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline runs to Yanbu on the Red Sea, away from Hormuz. Eurostat does not record the loading port, though, so the data are consistent with that route without proving it. Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Iran have no comparable way out. In its report of 11 September 2026 the IEA put crude losses at just below 45%, supported by more oil bypassing the strait and US military escorts. The Hormuz scenario calculator lets you test a longer closure.
5. How do the US and the UK compare?
The United States depends less on the Gulf: in 2025, 7.9% of its crude imports came from the Persian Gulf and 63.4% from Canada, according to EIA country-of-origin data released on 31 August 2026 (shares are our own calculation). Of 2,251,381 thousand barrels imported, Canada supplied 1,427,229 thousand, Mexico 139,928 thousand (6.2%), Saudi Arabia 98,278 thousand and Iraq 65,160 thousand. In the first half of 2026 the monthly Gulf share peaked at 12.0% in February (January 10.0%, March 10.4%), then fell to 8.0% in April, 3.1% in May and 1.9% in June, when Saudi Arabia shipped 2,893 thousand barrels and Iraq 504 thousand. Canada's share reached 68.0% in June. The next EIA monthly release is due on 30 September 2026.
The United Kingdom looks more like continental Europe. According to DUKES 2026 (data for 2025), the US was the UK's number one crude supplier, ahead of Norway by just over one million tonnes, although US volumes fell 26% on 2024 and made up under a third of crude imports. Norway supplied 11 million tonnes, 27% of the total, and OPEC countries 21%. Diesel imports came from the US (31%), the Netherlands (26%) and Belgium (11%). Kuwait was the third-largest source of all product imports (13%) and the main source of jet fuel, at 35% or 3.7 million tonnes; India, Saudi Arabia and the UAE each sent more than 1 million tonnes. The UK was a net importer of products by 16 million tonnes, the highest since it became a net importer in 2013. Like Eurostat, DESNZ counts tonnes; the EIA counts barrels.
How to cite: Global Oil Shock (Jörg Dässler), “Oil Imports by Country: 8 European Nations Compared”, as of 23 Sep 2026, https://globaloilshock.com/en/strategic-oil-reserves/oil-imports-by-country/