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  • US emergency oil supply shrinks to 40-year low as Biden keeps tapping r

    From zinn@21:1/5 to All on Fri Oct 7 08:19:24 2022
    XPost: sci.geo.petroleum, talk.politics.guns, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
    XPost: sac.politics

    White House to release 10M additional barrels from Strategic Petroleum
    Reserve

    President Biden is once again tapping into the country's emergency
    stockpile of oil as the White House tries to prevent gasoline prices from spiking again, reducing the petroleum reserve to its lowest level in four decades.

    The nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve had 416.4 million barrels in the
    week ended Sept. 30 – the lowest level since 1984 – after the Biden administration released another 6.2 million barrels, according to
    Department of Energy data.

    Biden had tapped the emergency oil stash four times over the past year in
    hopes of lowering gas prices, including in March, when he ordered a record-setting 180 million barrels of oil released from the reserve – 1
    million barrels per day over six months.

    With the releases scheduled to finish this month, the White House said on Wednesday that it would release 10 million additional barrels in November.

    BIDEN ADMIN WEIGHS COMPLETE BLOCK ON OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING AS GAS PRICES
    KEEP RISING

    Oil pumpjacks stand in the Inglewood Oil Field on Nov. 23, 2021, in Los Angeles, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images / Getty Images)

    The decision to further drain the oil reserves came hours after a
    coalition of oil-producing countries led by Russia and Saudi Arabia –
    known as OPEC+ – announced it would slash oil production by 2 million
    barrels, the first major cut in two years. The move – which came despite lobbying from U.S. officials to do otherwise – threatens to raise oil
    prices at a time when the world is already combating record-high
    inflation.

    The White House condemned the production cuts, which threaten to push gas prices higher with midterm elections just one month away.

    "The president is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC Plus
    to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the
    continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine," Brian Deese,
    the director of the National Economic Council, and Jake Sullivan, the
    national security adviser, said in a statement.

    After hitting a record high of $5.01 per gallon in mid-June, a gallon of
    gas now costs about $3.86 on average, according to AAA.

    AMERICANS SHOULD PREPARE FOR GAS PRICES TO KEEP RISING, ANALYSTS WARN

    While that marks a 23% decline from the summer peak, it is still up 29%
    from just one year ago.

    President Biden boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022, to travel to Poughkeepsie, New York. (AP
    Photo/Andrew Harnik / AP Newsroom)

    Proponents of releasing barrels from the emergency stockpile say that
    doing so increases oil supplies and reduces prices at the pump, while also generating billions in revenue for the federal government. But critics say
    that releasing emergency supplies is a short-term fix and does not
    increase the country's oil production capabilities.

    Established after a 1973-74 oil embargo by Arab members of OPEC, the
    reserve has been used in several emergencies, including in 2005 after
    Hurricane Katrina made landfall and destroyed swaths of the Gulf of Mexico
    oil infrastructure. At the time, the Bush administration authorized the
    release of 20.8 million barrels of crude oil to U.S. producers.

    The Biden administration announced plans earlier this year to replenish
    the oil reserve with a call for bids to repurchase 60 million barrels of
    oil – roughly one-third of the emergency supply released by the president
    in March.

    The call for bids from companies is slated to take place in the fall and
    is designed to bolster the emergency supply for future years.

    Gas prices listed at a petrol station in Los Angeles, California, on July
    19, 2022. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

    West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, rose to $88.45 per barrels on Thursday following the OPEC+ cuts. Bloomberg News previously reported that
    the White House had considered refilling its emergency oil reserve when
    crude prices dip below $80 a barrel.

    Brent crude futures, meanwhile, increased to $94.42 a barrel.

    https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/us-emergency-oil-supply-shrinks-40- year-low-biden-keeps-tapping-reserve

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