Here Are The Countries Drinking Up Saudi America's Sweet Oil [MAP]

It's the 40th anniversary of the first Middle East oil embargo, which triggered a gas crisis in American and forever changed the course of U.S. energy policy.

The Wall Street Journal's Ben Lefevbre has a good piece discussing how much things have changed. Thanks to the Great American Shale Boom, there has actually been a huge surge in U.S. petroleum exports.

Today, countries are increasingly relying on us.

With rare exceptions, only refined petroleum products - things like heating oil, diesel, gasoline and petrochemicals - are allowed to leave American shores. Congress actually banned shipping raw crude oil in 1975.

The volume of these exported refined products is quite substantial.

Here's the chart showing exports are now at an unprecedented 3.9 million barrels a day - equivalent to half of everything we're producing:

So where is it all going?

Not surprisingly, Canada and Mexico get the most.

But after that is when it starts to get interesting: major destinations include Brazil, Chile, the Netherlands - and China, which is set to surpass the U.S. as world's largest importer of energy. Exports there jumped 16% year-over-year in 2012.

Here's the raw data showing each countries share of U.S. exports.

It's an incredible story.