Wouldn’t it make most economic sense to just sell to our own countries in that case if there’s some standardized barrel price?
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“Oil” isn’t just one thing. It is tempting to lump oil together into one commodity but there is actually a range from extra-heavy to extra-light, as well as “sweet” and “sour” referring to sulfur content. The US is set up to be able to refine the nastiest, thickest, most sour oil out there. However the resurgence of fracking has made light, sweet oil more available. This means it can make sense for the US to import some kinds of oil and export oil instead of refining it themselves.
When you see countries both importing and exporting oil it is most likely down to this kind of difference in the underlying good.
Governments don’t buy and sell oil, companies do. Maybe some American refinery got a better deal on Canadian oil one day and a Canadian company got better deal on American oil another day. Between individual contracts, currency fluctuations, etc. it might make sense to export in both directions for the specific players involved. Also, there are different grades of oil that are better suited to different uses. So oil sands from Canada might be more feasible to use at certain times or for certain uses, while gulf crude might be more economically feasible at other times.
Oil isn’t easy to move and doing so requires expensive, specialized equipment.
Canada’s oil transport infrastructure is largely set up to move oil from Alberta to the US Midwest and Texas. It isn’t possible to move oil west from Alberta due to the Rocky Mountains. It isn’t practical to move oil east from Alberta due to the distance, poor weather, and low demand.
So what Canada does is to export oil from Alberta to the US. British Columbia imports oil from California and Alaska – which is easy to do via either pipeline or sea. Eastern Canada imports oil from Pennsylvania, which is easy to do via pipeline or the Great Lakes.
The result is a large amount of oil flowing from Canada to the Midwest, and a small amount of oil flowing form the US west and east coasts to the Canadian west and east coasts.
One reason for the oil sands / bitumen being sent south is that Canada doesn’t have the refining capacity to deal with it. The majority of refineries that can process it are in the USA. Many dozens of them. There hasn’t been any meaninful investment in expanding oil sands refining capacity in Canada in decades. Alberta has some limited capacity to process oil sands but it’s only a tiny fraction of the US capacity.
On top of that, many provinces are blocking pipeline construction so for Alberta to export product refined from oil sands in Canada is difficult. It’s easier to send it south and then let the Americans send it back across the border in various other provinces.
It’s all in the difference between sweet light crude and sour crude, and the respective refining capacity of each nation.
The US strategically refines sour crude, but produces sweet light.
Trading in oil helps stabilize the price. Although the US is not part of OPEC, our trade accomplishes the same goal. By keeping oil prices relatively the same across the globe, we have the ability to import when we need more.
In addition, production and demand aren’t always equal. Oil producers and refiners often produce oil that can’t be quickly distributed, so they auction it off. At the same time, oil demand might be higher than what is in production at that time, so we import. By having a steady flow of import and export, we are able to manage our supply as needed for demand.
A better question is why was hauling ethanol from Wisconsin to Illinois, then literally, same trip, pulling a load of ethanol from Rochelle Illinois and bringing back up to Wisconsin?
Not all the oil is the same. It gets processed depending on its intended use. It’s cheaper to process then ship than process on site. Canada needs different types of oil. It exports the type it has enough of and imports what it doesn’t have enough of.
Trade tables tend to combine all forms of oil into one block.
And… Canada is big. Quebec might import oil from the EU and BC might export it to the States.
In some part closer to the frontier is cheaper to import it than transport it from your own country
Other people have pointed out that there are many different kinds of “oil” products depending on how its refined and what not.
But also, some of it is just basic economy, it makes sense that it is cheaper to buy gas of of a tanker in nova scotia that is coming from east coast refineries (sea shipping is the cheapest form of transport) than oil that has to get transported across the middle of canada.
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