Analysts had expected that increasing imports from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia would send inventories higher.
Though the United States has been increasing imports, oil prices have fallen recently.
Though the United States has been increasing imports, oil prices had fallen over the last few weeks.
And China is increasing imports and production of natural gas, the cleanest fossil fuel.
Costlier oil will add to many Asian economies' woes by increasing import bills for companies and countries.
Meanwhile, Mr. Perdomo said, the Mexican sugar market is steadily shrinking because of increasing imports of less costly high fructose corn syrup from the United States.
But energy executives say that increasing imports will probably delay a recovery in production, which until now depended almost entirely on national market forces.
Increasing import dependency puts us at the mercy of not only volatile global energy markets, but both physical and political energy security issues.
Australia has already signed an agreement to export uranium to China, which is building nuclear power plants to offset its increasing imports of oil.
Increasing imports in the Turkish economy necessarily gave way to the needs for exports as well.
