Import and Export Resilience of the Global Oil Trade Network

Given the economic and geopolitical importance of oil, it is important to understand the resilience of the global oil trade network to shocks. In this paper, the aim is to identify the structure of the global oil trade network and its resilience to shocks. First, the structure of the global oil trade network between 178 countries is determined. Second, the stability degree of all countries in oil export and import networks is calculated based on the principle of diversity. Third, we develop an index to estimate the effective share of each country in the oil trade networks. The effective share index combines the country's efficiency and its trade share in the crude oil trade networks. Finally, a resilience measure is introduced to simultaneously capture a country’s stability and effective share within the network. Results show that China, Belarus, USA, India, Taiwan, Rep. of Korea, Germany, Canada, Spain, and Italy have a high level of instability while playing a significant role in the network, which yields to a reduction in the import-side network resilience. Also, Saudi Arabia, Russian Federation, Iraq, Canada, Nigeria, Kuwait, Venezuela, Iran, Mexico, and Kazakhstan reduce the resilience of the global oil trade network on the export side