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SUZANNE DOWNING: Biden Backs America Into A Corner After Whittling Down Key Oil Reserve
Opinion by Suzanne Downing • Yesterday 1:57 PM
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Since the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the mid-1970s, America has never been backed into such an energy corner as we’re in now, thanks to the Biden administration selling off much of our oil reserve to countries like China.

It’s an invisible trap about which most Americans are oblivious, but it has everything to do with inflation, recession and national security. Americans may soon feel the pain of rising prices, supply shortages and a faltering economy, if OPEC, Russia and China succeed in taking advantage of our suddenly depleted energy stockpile.

Under President Joe Biden, this drawdown of our reserve oil masks political problems he blames on Russia. But that dog won’t hunt. Let me explain:

Recall that it took just one year after Biden became president for Russia President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine. Putin had also seized parts of Crimea during the years when Barack Obama was president.

Putin held his Ukraine ambitions in abeyance during the four years of President Donald Trump. Love him or hate him, Trump was the president with whom Putin did not want to mess. For four years, the United States was strong enough to stall the expansion plans of the Russian strongman until that fateful day when American voters evidently elected a man who would hardly leave his basement to campaign for president.

For Biden, the price of oil doubling under his administration was a serious problem starting in 2022; the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was his solution to keep Americans calm after the price of gas had doubled quickly last year.

Thus, oil poured forth from the strategic reserve month after month, invisibly suppressing the supply problem Biden was creating with his other anti-oil policies. Much of that oil sold by the Biden administration went to companies that were middlemen for China.

How much oil? You can practically hear the echo in the salt caverns. Last year, the Department of Energy sold off over 180 million reserve barrels. This was about 21 gallons of crude oil for every man, woman and child in America.

In one year alone, the Biden administration drained nearly a third of what was in the emergency reserve and has more sell-offs on the schedule. The administration says its efforts have lowered gasoline prices by 17-42 cents over what they would be without this action.

The reserve, which can hold 714 million barrels of oil, was meant as a deterrent to adverse actions by OPEC, and is supposed to help give the country a leg up in foreign policy.

But now, with just 346 million barrels left, OPEC and its sidecar Russia can read the charts: The United States has not only run through its emergency supply, it doesn’t allow enough domestic oil to be developed to meet its own needs.

Military power is one toggle on the global geopolitical chessboard and the U.S. still has that — we hope. Oil production is another big player, and in a way, is the Queen with more moves.

The opposing players have announced their next moves: Saudi Arabia cut oil production by one million barrels a day, effective July 1.

Russia, still under oil sanctions by major Western countries, has moved its oil across the oceans in spite of sanctions. Before the G7 changed the export rules on Russia to western world countries in 2022, Russia exported 33,000 barrels of refined product to the African continent per day. By March of 2023, it had built that to 420,000 barrels per day to Africa.

Russia’s oil continues to trade above the $60 price cap set by the participating embargo countries back in December. In July, Russian Urals crude oil futures breached the $60 limit and is now trading over $63, about where it stood at the time Russia invaded Ukraine and before the G7 sanctions were announced.

To drive prices higher still, Russia will now reduce oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day starting in August, the same time Saudi Arabia is scaling back.

Thus, price caps on Russia had only had a temporary effect.

As the chess pieces move around the board, President Biden will be forced to purchase oil to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at higher prices than the price at which he sold reserve oil to China last year. Or, he simply may not replenish the supply and hope for the best.

Hope is a bad strategy. The storage caverns are half empty. With America using 20 million barrels a day, we’re down to a 17-day supply of emergency oil.

The Biden Administration has backed us into a corner, and Americans should hope and pray for a warm winter, because the price of heating our homes may be more than we can afford in January.

Suzanne Downing is publisher of Must Read Alaska.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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As always, there is more to the story:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/16/biden-administration-strategic-petroleum-reserve-00074369

Biden administration set to start refilling oil reserve

The Biden administration is planning to begin refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a senior administration official said Friday, marking the end to the massive supply releases that the White House ordered to tame the sharp price spikes earlier this year.

President Joe Biden had ordered the Energy Department to begin releases from the reserve last year, and he sharply ramped up those sales after Russia invaded Ukraine in February — sending crude oil prices soaring and driving up gasoline to record levels. Total releases from the reserve this year totaled more than 211 million barrels, putting the inventories at their lowest levels since 1984.

Republicans had accused Biden of misusing the SPR for political purposes, but voters backed the measures by a clear majority, and retail gasoline prices retreated sharply as crude oil markets calmed. U.S. benchmark WTI crude futures jumped nearly $2 on the announcement and were trading at $75 per barrel early Friday afternoon. That’s well below the peak of over $120 a barrel earlier this year.

Average retail gasoline price stood at $3.178 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association — down from the record high at $5.02 in June and nearly 15 cents under the year ago level.

The Energy Department will start with an initial request for 3 million barrels, asking companies for the barrels to be delivered in February, the administration official said on a call with reporters. Companies participating in the process must submit their offers by Dec. 28 and will offer oil at a fixed price.

“There’s still quite a bit of volatility in the system,” the official said. “When we think the price is in the range where we think it’s a good deal for taxpayers and good for the market, we will buy. The buyback will take months, it will take years.”

The administration had announced in October it would set up a process to purchase oil from companies to refill the SPR at a price of $67 to $72 a barrel.

The department will also offer 2 million barrels for exchange to fuel producers looking to make up supply lost because of the Keystone pipeline transporting crude from Canada to refineries in the U.S. Midwest and Gulf Coast going offline after a spill last week, the official said.

uh... since they planned on restocking the reserve they are releasing 90 million more barrels...



Nov 23, 2021 Today, the President is announcing that the Department of Energy will make available releases of 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve


https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1129...other-15m-barrels-from-strategic-reserve
October 19, 2022 Biden is releasing 15 million barrels from the strategic oil reserve to tame prices


https://www.reuters.com/business/en...eserves-mandated-by-congress-2023-02-13/
February 13, 2023 U.S. to sell 26 mln bbls of oil reserves as mandated by Congress


https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe...le-crude-oil-strategic-petroleum-reserve


The oversight committee is also now on the case.

https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-fallon-biden-administrations-depletion-of-oil-reserves-jeopardizesamerican-energy-independence%EF%BF%BC/
Apr 5, 2023 Comer & Fallon: Biden Administration’s Depletion of Oil Reserves Jeopardizes American Energy Independence

“The unprecedented and historic decision to release over 200 million barrels from the U.S. oil stockpile reduced SPR inventories to their lowest levels since 1984. Committee Republicans are concerned the Biden Administration abused the SPR for political gain—to lower skyrocketing gas prices before the 2022 midterm election—rather than for its intended purpose of mitigating severe energy supply interruptions or fulfilling obligations to the International Energy Agency (IEA),” wrote the lawmakers. “By gutting vital fuel storage to lower short-term prices, the Biden Administration exposed the U.S. to future market volatility and increased supply dependence on adversarial nations instead of supporting an all-of-the-above energy approach to unleash American energy potential.”


because they have only purchased 6 ish million barrels of oil

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-...ill-Not-Be-Replenished-Anytime-Soon.html

U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve Will Not Be Replenished Anytime Soon

Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it plans to purchase by August 2023 around 6 million barrels of crude oil for the SPR, with delivery scheduled for October and November.

So far, the Biden Administration has bought 6.3 million barrels at an average price of $72.67 per barrel, compared to around $95 per barrel that SPR crude was sold for in 2022, DOE said.



Plus, we are only around 50% of what we were at in August 2020 we only have 363,723 million barrels in reserve.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCSSTUS1&f=M

Y’all need to diversify y’all energy consumption like the US should be doing. Relying on one or two sources of energy with a population of 330M+ is negligent at best.

Diversify your portfolio isn’t just a good principle in finances.

We’ve had how many years to diversify? Could you imagine if we started 20-25 years ago instead of procrastinating? What would our energy resources look like then?

The longer we wait, the harder and more expensive it will be to transition.

And by the way, most people - regardless of ideology - understands we aren’t getting rid of oil. But getting rid of oil is not the same as stating that we are way too reliant on it.

Diversifying our energy sector means less reliance on one commodity, while putting less strain on the infrastructure at the same time.

But that makes too much sense. As we can see, it makes it sound more like a conflict when someone claims people are making it "an all or nothing" type proposition.