Q. How much energy is being imported? How much is being exported?
Q. What is the net energy transfer? Which regions / countries are we importing from? |
Sources
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. Imports and exports of crude oil by country (DUKES G.4). Published 28 March 2014. Updated 26 July 2018. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dukes-foreign-trade-statistics |
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In 2017, the UK used 192 million tonnes of energy, which was the lowest annual amount since this dataset began in 1999.
The UK generates the majority of this energy by itself (75-85%), with approximately 15-25% imported from other countries. However, there is a trend of more energy being imported as a percentage of the total usage, as shown in the graphs below. |
Since the baseline year in 1999, the amount of energy being imported increased by 60% up to 2004 and then remained about the same with a slight drop in 2013-2016. The latest data from 2017 shows a 53% increase on the 1999 value.
Whereas the amount of energy that the UK is generating and using has dropped by 29%. The Total energy used by the UK has decreased by 17% in 18 years; between 1999 and 2017. |
Imports & Exports
Between 1999 and 2004, the UK was exporting more energy than it was importing, making it a net exporter.
Since 2005 however, the UK has been importing more energy than it has been exporting, making it a net importer. This graph indicates when we had a surplus of energy availability and how this has impact on our need for imports. |
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On the whole, imported energy is coming from outside the Middle East, consistently above 95%. The further breakdown shows that the majority is coming from fellow European countries, and quite a significant amount is coming from African countries.
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In 2017, the UK imported 50.8M tonnes of energy, with only 4% coming from the Middle East.
From the further breakdown, it can be seen that the vast majority came from Europe (58%), then Africa (21%), followed by the Americas (8%). Russian energy imports represented 6% of the total. |