Global oil production share by region 2010-2020

The Middle East produces more oil than any other region in the world, accounting for slightly less than a third of global oil production in 2020, at 31.3 percent. Overall, the Middle Eastern oil production makes up a slightly larger share of global production than it did ten years ago, but the contribution to worldwide oil production has risen most consistently in North America, while declining in all other regions.

Shifts in North American oil production

Over the past decade, higher oil production in North America has largely been driven by the United States. In the last ten years, oil production in the United States has more than doubled, with its annual output only mildly affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, Canada's crude oil production has also increased in the period, although in a less consistent manner.

The U.S. moves towards less dependency

Oil prices from OPEC countries, many of which are in the Middle East, had been rising in the years leading up to the global recession, reaching a peak in 2008. As a result, the United States decreased oil imports, and investors capitalized on lower interest rates to develop technologies such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking) that would allow domestic oil extraction from wells deep underground that were once too hard to reach. In 2019, before oil demand was affected by the pandemic, the North American country's imports dipped below 2.5 million barrels, a 26 percent drop in comparison to a decade earlier.