Net embodied petroleum importers face greater petroleum security risks in international trade due to their high foreign dependence. Therefore, paying better attention to the national flows and drivers of embodied petroleum consumption can effectively serve net embodied petroleum importers to avoid petroleum security risks and formulate environmental protection policy. This study utilized the multi-regional input–output model to determine the top five embodied petroleum net importers (i.e., the USA, Japan, Germany, the UK, and France) under the economic globalization, and traced the flows of embodied petroleum consumption through international trade. Combined with the logarithmic mean Divisia index method, this study also deeply investigated the drivers of changes embodied petroleum in net imports. The results show that from the perspective of international trade, the USA was not only the largest importer but also the largest exporter of embodied petroleum. Among the trade flows of embodied petroleum, the largest trade flow was from China to the USA, which indicated that China was the world factory and the USA was the consumer power. The embodied petroleum trade markets of Germany, the UK, and France was mainly distributed in Europe & Eurasia resulted from European economic integration. The largest contributor to the decrease of embodied petroleum imports in the top 4 net importers was the petroleum intensity effect. Meanwhile, the import dependence effect was the largest contributor to the increase of France’s embodied petroleum net imports. In order to further avoid the risk of petroleum security, it is an effective path worth exploring to construct the diversified petroleum product import strategy and improve energy efficiency.
