ok let me ask my question differently
If our total production of oil is 11,000.000 gal a day and our consumption is 18,000,000 gal a day
where do we get the oil that we export
imports are pegged at 8,000,000 gal a day which makes sense but on top of this we are supposed to export 8,000,000 which is a mystery to me.
Again, remind me of where that 18 million number comes from (it's barrels, not gallons, BTW). If I know where that is I can better say if that is "petroleum," which includes natural gas liquids. Otherwise we're talking apples and oranges.
The question overall seems to be muddling a lot of questions. Who has pegged that import number? You seem to have a lot of things spun around and stuck together, which seems to be leading to the confusion.
I'll answer what I think is a type of question you're trying to get at. If we produce say 15 million barrels of petroleum and consume 15 million, there could and almost assuredly is some amount of importing and exporting, owing to how different companies do business and how things are refined (i.e., you could import crude and then sell it as gasoline to whoever). We don't just use all the local oil/petroleum/whatnot first and then go to the foreign stuff. (the same way that we don't drive all the fords first, and then fill out the rest of cars with imports)
It still feels like there's a lot of imprecision in what we're getting at here, which might lead to a reality that "energy" independence is more catchy slogan that tangible policy goal (or wise economic goal). This is not to say that expanding our capability and shrinking reliance on things like oil are not worthy goals for a variety of reasons. These generally are good. But we'll still be subject to oil shocks and such as long as we still use the stuff, which will be for a long, long time.