WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, praised the recent release of a new analytical tool to track oil imports produced by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

“Our nation is importing record low levels of oil from the world’s volatile regions and exporting record volumes of all sorts of energy to our friends and allies,” Murkowski said. “This new tool is a welcome addition to the analytical arsenal at EIA.”

The accompanying EIA report – the latest example of the “dynamic and ongoing” analysis of potential crude exports requested by Sen. Murkowski in April – found, in part, that U.S. crude oil imports, principally light sweet grades, have declined since 2010.

It follows an EIA report released in October that documented how gasoline prices are linked to global rather than domestic oil prices, and another EIA report released in May that found that the vast majority of new domestic crude production was of lighter grades.

Murkowski is the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

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