Crude oil’s importance to the way we live means its trade and ownership frequently become matters of global politics, and a rise of a few cents on the barrel can have repercussions around the world, but few know much about the ins and outs of this industry.

GSM London, a Higher Education institution with campuses in Greenford and Greenwich, has created an interactive guide that reveals which countries control the world’s most influential resource. Broken down by year, the tool uses UN data to show the top importers and exporters of crude oil and commentary on the changing landscape in oil trade.

James Milne, Module Leader (Energy and Procurement Department) at GSM London, comments on the key developments of the oil industry in 2016:

Looking to new sources for oil production: Unprecedented (at least in recent years) low crude oil prices are causing the oil industry to re-appraise its exploration and production activities. Forced to explore for fossil fuels in increasingly difficult geographical and climatic regions, due to the dominance of National Oil Companies in the traditional producing regions of Middle East, Venezuela and the Far East, the supermajors are searching for oil in the Arctic, and in deep-water locations. These unconventional sources require leading-edge technology, and that costs money – much more money than lifting oil in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.

The decline of the crude oil powerhouses: The low price of crude oil is hurting oil producing nations. When crude traded in the $80 to $100 range, many countries in the Middle East began huge infrastructure and social welfare spending programmes. But when crude bottomed-out earlier this year at $30-ish per barrel levels, these levels of spending commitments meant such countries were rapidly eating into, and eroding, their foreign currency reserves or sovereign wealth funds.

Saudi Arabia is thought to be burning through its exchange reserves at a rate of $10 bn a month to cover its record budget deficit.  In the long-term, this divergence between low oil price incomes and high domestic spending is simply not sustainable.

The impact of over-production: In a world already awash with oil, mainly due to weaker demand from China and India, there are concerns over what this will do for global oil prices. As long as there is a significant and continued over-production of oil against consumption levels, there will come a time when the world will run out of storage locations for all the unsold crude.

Import vs export: The oil map reveals that the USA has been the single biggest importer of oil for 20 years running. Over the two decades, it has spent nearly twice as much on oil on average as the country in 2nd place. However, its spending has fallen sharply since 2011. Despite not even appearing in the top ten until 1999, India has risen rapidly up the table to become the third biggest importer in the world. As home to roughly one-sixth of the world's population, India's oil needs are likely to keep rising as the country continues to develop.

Diversification in the oil industry: One thing is certain - the oil industry will continue to adapt and change. The players may not be the same; the evolutionary path of our industry is littered with oil companies that no longer exist, or who have been acquired by, merged or folded into other conglomerations to gain the critical mass, through an elimination of costs, as the industry has overcome previous and severe economic challenges.  BP will, one day, truly stand for “Beyond Petroleum”, and as ExxonMobil already brands its UK service stations with “Esso Fuel System Energy”, the prospect of seeing ExxonMobil Hydrogen as a retail brand is intriguing”.