U.S. waterborne crude oil imports hit a four-year low in February, driven by a fall in Canadian barrels shipped to the East Coast, according to ship tracking data, as refinery maintenance, including a long turnaround at the largest plant in the region, quashed demand.
The drop in demand coincides with the implementation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 10% tariffs on crude from Canada, which are threatening to upend trade flows between the U.S. and its northern neighbor and main crude supplier.
Total U.S. waterborne crude oil imports slipped by 319,000 barrels per day (bpd) in February to 2.32 million bpd, according to Kpler, marking their lowest monthly level since March 2021.
Of that, Canadian volumes fell by a third to 265,000 bpd, their lowest since April 2024, according to Kpler, due to a 67% decline in East Coast-bound volumes.
East Coast refinery utilization slumped to 54.8% last week from 82.5%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, its lowest since July 2020 amid maintenance at the largest refinery in the region, according to analysts at research company IIR Energy.
Phillips 66 started a major 50-day turnaround last month at its 258,500 bpd Bayway Refinery in New Jersey.
This tanked overall February crude imports to the East Coast, said Matt Smith, lead oil analyst at Kpler.
Shipments to the East Coast tumbled by 189,000 bpd to a four-year low of 354,000 bpd.
At the same time, import demand could be expected to continue slipping, as some refiners have brought more units back online, capable of processing more domestic light, sweet crudes, said Hillary Stevenson, director at IIR Energy.
Chevron completed a retrofit at its 125,000 bpd Pasadena refinery in Texas in December, increasing the refinery’s intake of crude from the Permian basin, the largest U.S. oilfield.
Exxon Mobil and Phillips 66 have also brought more refinery capacity online in the last two years that runs more domestic crudes, weighing on import demand, according to Stevenson.
The threat of Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and Canada also affected imports in February, traders said, as market participants awaited confirmation of those levies before seeking barrels from alternative sources.
Even as overall imports declined in February, shipments of Brazilian crude to the U.S. rose last month by around 58% to 292,000 bpd, possibly a hedge against tariffs, said Rohit Rathod, senior oil market analyst at Vortexa.
He expects demand for barrels from the Middle East as well as Colombia will also grow.
“As the tariffs play out over the coming weeks, we will likely start to see the impact,” said Kpler’s Smith.
(Reporting by Georgina McCartney in Houston; Editing by Liz Hampton and Marguerita Choy)