Apparently the government shutdown didn’t prevent the Energy Information Administration from releasing the latest Short-term Energy Outlook this week*. The big takeaway is that China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest net importer of oil. The gap between oil consumption and domestic production is practically a rounding error: 6.24 million barrels per day (bpd) in the United States and 6.3 million bpd in China. However, the multi-year trend is clear. Here’s the chart: