Oil is perhaps the most critical source of energy worldwide. Overall consumption is on the rise as more and more of the world industrialize and start utilizing modern machines. The United States is the largest consumer of oil; the European Union is next, with 13,630,000 barrels per day consumed, but it is not included on this chart because it is not a single country.
Here are the top 25 oil consuming nations as provided by the CIA World Factbook (2009/2010 estimates); the values represent the number of barrels consumed per day.
country
barrels/day
United States
18,690,000
China
8,200,000
Japan
4,363,000
India
2,980,000
Russia
2,740,000
Brazil
2,460,000
Germany
2,437,000
Saudi Arabia
2,430,000
South Korea
2,185,000
Canada
2,151,000
Mexico
2,078,000
France
1,875,000
Iran
1,809,000
United Kingdom
1,669,000
Italy
1,537,000
Spain
1,482,000
Indonesia
1,115,000
Australia
946,300
Singapore
927,000
Netherlands
922,800
Taiwan
834,000
Venezuela
740,000
Iraq
687,000
Egypt
683,000
Argentina
622,000