1. Where does the UK get its crude oil?
The United States was the UK's number one supplier of crude oil in 2025, ahead of Norway “by just over one million tonnes”, according to the government's Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES 2026, chapter 3). Imports from the US made up under a third of the total but were down 26% on 2024. Norway supplied 11 million tonnes, 21% less than a year earlier, yet still 27% of crude imports. OPEC members were the source of 21%. The DUKES figures we quote give that OPEC share but no share for the Gulf states alone, so the UK cannot be placed on our Hormuz index in the same way as EU countries.
| Import | Main sources in 2025 | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Crude oil | 1. United States, 2. Norway | US under a third of the total, down 26% on 2024; Norway 11 million tonnes, 27%; OPEC countries 21% |
| Diesel | United States 31%, Netherlands 26%, Belgium 11% | the three together just under 70% |
| Jet fuel | Kuwait 35% (3.7 million tonnes) | India, Saudi Arabia and the UAE over 1 million tonnes each |
| All oil products | Netherlands just under a quarter (7.9 million tonnes), United States 15% (4.9 million tonnes), Kuwait 13% | net product imports of 16 million tonnes, the most since the UK became a net importer in 2013 |
Source: DESNZ, DUKES 2026, chapter 3 (data for 2025).
The UK is also a crude exporter. In 2025 it supplied 10.7% of Germany's crude imports, 9.6% of the Netherlands' and 4.5% of the EU-27's (Eurostat, own calculation). Its oil stocks stood at 11.2 million tonnes at the end of 2025, more than the IEA's 90 days of net imports; 9.2 million tonnes, 82%, was held in the UK and most of the rest in the Netherlands (DUKES 2026). How those stocks are organised is explained on the UK stocking obligation.
2. Where do the UK's diesel and jet fuel come from?
Just under 70% of the diesel the UK imported in 2025 came from three countries: the United States (31%), the Netherlands (26%) and Belgium (11%) (DUKES 2026). The UK was a net importer of oil products by 16 million tonnes in 2025, the highest figure since it became a net importer in 2013. Across all products, the Netherlands supplied just under a quarter, 7.9 million tonnes, and the United States 15%, 4.9 million tonnes.
Jet fuel is where the Gulf shows up. Kuwait “has become the primary source of imported jet fuel for the UK”, with 35% of the total, or 3.7 million tonnes; India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates each supplied more than a million tonnes, and Kuwait was the third largest source of all product imports at 13%. Unlike Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which can send part of their exports by pipeline to the Red Sea and to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, Kuwait has no route that avoids the strait (see the Strait of Hormuz explainer).
For comparison, Kuwait supplied 19.5% of the jet fuel imported by EU countries in 2025, and France received 2,730 thousand tonnes of jet fuel from Kuwait in 2025 but none in the second quarter of 2026 (Eurostat, own calculation). The 35% refers to jet fuel; we have no separate origin figure for the kerosene burned in home heating boilers, and the DUKES data end in 2025. Product stocks across Europe are on diesel, heating oil and jet fuel stocks.
If you heat with kerosene, the reserve that matters most this winter is your own tank.
Check how long it lasts3. Where does the US get its crude oil imports?
Canada supplied 63.4% of US crude oil imports in 2025, 1,427,229 thousand barrels out of 2,251,381 thousand (EIA, U.S. Imports by Country of Origin, released 31 August 2026; share our own calculation). Other suppliers in the EIA table include Mexico with 6.2%, Saudi Arabia, Guyana, Brazil, Colombia and Iraq. The Persian Gulf countries together sent 178,700 thousand barrels, 7.9% of the total: Saudi Arabia 98,278, Iraq 65,160, the United Arab Emirates 10,132 and Kuwait 5,130 thousand barrels. The EIA table is organised by country of origin; the rows below are selected countries, not a complete ranking.
| Country of origin | Thousand barrels, 2025 | Share of US crude imports (own calculation) |
|---|---|---|
| Canada | 1,427,229 | 63.4% |
| Mexico | 139,928 | 6.2% |
| Saudi Arabia | 98,278 | 4.4% |
| Guyana | 76,020 | 3.4% |
| Brazil | 72,382 | 3.2% |
| Colombia | 70,883 | 3.1% |
| Iraq | 65,160 | 2.9% |
| Venezuela | 51,033 | 2.3% |
| United Arab Emirates | 10,132 | 0.5% |
| Kuwait | 5,130 | 0.2% |
| Persian Gulf (EIA group) | 178,700 | 7.9% |
| Total crude imports | 2,251,381 | 100% |
Source: EIA, U.S. Imports by Country of Origin, crude oil, annual (released 31 August 2026).
In daily terms, crude imports from Canada averaged 3.9 million barrels a day in 2025, 4% less than in 2024 (EIA, Today in Energy, 29 July 2026). That is why the US picture looks so different from Europe's: most US crude imports come from a neighbouring country, not through a chokepoint in the Gulf. The United States keeps its emergency crude in government-owned caverns; the current level is on US Strategic Petroleum Reserve level.
4. How much US oil came from the Persian Gulf in 2026?
The Gulf share of US crude imports fell from 12.0% in February 2026 to 1.9% in June, when only Saudi Arabia (2,893 thousand barrels) and Iraq (504 thousand) still shipped crude from the region (EIA monthly data, released 31 August 2026; shares our own calculation). Total imports stayed between 180,799 and 202,613 thousand barrels a month in the first half of the year, and Canada's share reached 68.0% in June, against 63.4% for 2025 as a whole.
| Month (2026) | Crude imports, thousand barrels | from the Persian Gulf, thousand barrels | Gulf share (own calculation) |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 200,538 | 20,037 | 10.0% |
| February | 180,799 | 21,698 | 12.0% |
| March | 202,613 | 21,138 | 10.4% |
| April | 187,705 | 14,933 | 8.0% |
| May | 184,550 | 5,781 | 3.1% |
| June | 181,311 | 3,397 | 1.9% |
Source: EIA, U.S. Imports by Country of Origin, crude oil, monthly (released 31 August 2026; next release 30 September 2026).
Both remaining suppliers have at least a partial way around the Strait of Hormuz: Saudi Arabia through its East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea, Iraq through its northern exports via Ceyhan in Turkey. The EIA data do not show the loading port, so the June figures fit a bypass route but do not prove one. How large those routes are is disputed: the IEA puts the capacity available on alternative routes out of the Gulf at 3.5 to 5.5 million barrels a day, while the EIA counts about 2.6 million barrels a day of Saudi and Emirati pipelines able to bypass the strait. What a longer closure would mean for supply is modelled in the Hormuz scenario calculator.
5. What do these import figures show, and what do they leave out?
Import statistics cannot tell you where the crude inside imported diesel or jet fuel was pumped, so what they measure is direct dependence on the supplying country. Whatever crude a Dutch, Belgian or American refinery ran on, its diesel is logged as Dutch, Belgian or American. For EU countries we built the GOS Hormuz Exposure Index from Eurostat data: the share of crude, diesel/heating oil and jet fuel imports that came from the seven Gulf states Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Iran, the same group the EIA calls “Persian Gulf”. For the EU-27, counted as the sum of the member states' own reports, it was 13.2% in 2025 and 7.6% in the second quarter of 2026; Germany stood at 6.0%, France at 20.1% (own calculation).
Europe was a minor destination for Hormuz oil even before the crisis: around 600,000 barrels a day, “just 4%” of the total, against 80% for Asia (IEA factsheet, February 2026). In its oil market report of 12 March 2026 the IEA said flows through the strait had dropped below 10% of their pre-crisis level; by its report of 11 September 2026, crude losses had narrowed to just below 45%.
Three limits apply. The UK figures are annual and end in 2025; the US figures cover crude only; and the EU figures include trade between member states. The ranking of all EU countries is on the GOS Hormuz Exposure Index, and supplier tables for Germany, France, Spain, Italy and others on oil imports by country of origin.
How to cite: Global Oil Shock (Jörg Dässler), “Where Does UK and US Oil Come From? 2025-26 Data”, as of 23 Sep 2026, https://globaloilshock.com/en/strategic-oil-reserves/where-uk-us-oil-comes-from/