Here are some facts from an article on U.S. and worldwide oil demand in 2006:

• Total U.S. petroleum deliveries, a measure of demand, fell by roughly 1 percent to 20.6 million barrels per day, down from 20.8 in '05 and 20.7 in '04
• U.S. consumption of residual fuel oil deliveries fell nearly 27 percent to 673,000 barrels per day
• Jet fuel demand declined by 2.8 percent to 1.6 million barrels a day
• Gasoline demand rose 0.8 percent to average more than 9.2 million barrels per day. The slight bump was met entirely by ethanol blends, which rose by nearly 35 percent to an estimated 5.4 billion gallons
• U.S. crude oil production slipped 1.1 percent in 2006
• Imports accounted for 66 percent of domestic petroleum use for the year
• Total petroleum imports fell slightly to 13.6 million barrels per day, a 1.9 percent drop
• Oil well completions in 2006 were the highest in 18 years, and natural gas completions reached an all-time high
• However, global demand rose in 2006 due to the strength of consumption in China and the Middle East

I read all that and here is what I gather from it. The U.S. still uses the most petroleum in the world. We make a lot less than we use, so we import the rest. We imported less last year than the two years before, but still managed to use more by upping our demand for ethanol. Airlines are trying to save fuel in whatever way they can, and powerplants are trying to use different methods to generate electricity as well.

The study was performed and the data released by the American Petroleum Institute. When reading the data, remember that total petroleum is different that gasoline, as it includes other petroleum based fuels and products.

[Source: API via Forbes]