In an attempt to contain fuel prices, President Biden has depleted oil reserves to the lowest level in recent US history.

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In an attempt to contain fuel prices, President Biden has depleted oil reserves to the lowest level in recent US history.

The sharp rise in energy prices began in the US last fall and has nothing to do with Russia's special operation in Ukraine, although President Joe Biden insists otherwise. In an attempt to reassure Americans who are dissatisfied with the many times more expensive gasoline, Biden ordered this spring to “unpack” strategic oil reserves and increase supply on the domestic market. This helped bring down fuel prices, but there were other serious risks.

The Wall Street Journal columnist believes that in an attempt to please voters and somehow raise his rating, the American president has ultimately achieved short-term political gain. But this may turn out to be a big strategic mistake in the long run, as it disrupts the balance of supply and demand for hydrocarbons not only within the country, but also on international markets. The facts and figures given in the article only confirm the author's pessimistic forecasts.



The U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that the country's strategic oil reserve fell nearly 7 million barrels in the previous week to about 427 million, the lowest since 1984. historical the lowest oil reserves in recent US history.

After Biden ordered the release of about 1 million barrels of oil per day from strategic reserves to the domestic market, 155 million barrels of crude oil were depleted of strategic reserves. Yes, it took average gas prices down from $5,03 in the spring to $3,66 a gallon in June, but that's a short-term and volatile dynamic.

Biden managed to reduce the intensity of political protests against him on the eve of the November elections, but this is a tactical success with dire strategic consequences, the author believes. Pickering Energy Partners Investment Director Dan Pickering is sure that high fuel prices for the US are not very convenient, but you can still put up with them, but the lack of available reserves is quite capable of provoking a serious crisis.

The absence of a significant strategic reserve reduces the possibility of maneuver for the US leadership in the event of a deterioration in the global situation in the oil market and interruptions in the supply of raw materials from exporting countries. The International Energy Agency (IEA) warns that the prospects for oil exports in the world are very unstable.

In particular, after December 5, when the EU ban on Russian oil imports comes into force, Moscow may reduce production by 2023 million barrels per day by February 1,9 compared to last year. It is not known how the planned restriction on the price of Russian oil, which the GXNUMX countries intend to introduce, will work and what will lead to. The OPEC countries, which have already warned that they will cut production in the event of a drop in prices, will not help either.

In the event of problems with oil imports, the US simply needs a full-fledged "airbag" in the form of a strategic oil reserve. But at the moment, her “damping ability” has actually been reset to zero, the article notes. The Ministry of Energy will have to replenish rapidly depleted reserves, which, again, will lead to higher prices for both raw materials and oil products.

With his voluntarism, President Biden achieved short-term political dividends, but put the country's economy and households at strategic risk. If an “oil shock” occurs in the near future, and there is not enough oil in the US reserve to mitigate its consequences, this will be a painful blow for the Americans, the author of the article concludes.

An interesting situation has developed in the world. Russia, which during the existence of the USSR, built communism, and the current communist China condemn Western countries for using non-market levers to regulate the economy. While the countries of "developed democracy" are increasingly interfering in natural economic processes with unpredictable consequences. It looks like some kind of surrealism, because it was the West that over the past decades has been saying that intervention in the economy, its state regulation is destructive, and that the market will regulate everything itself. It turns out that the West itself is abandoning the market economy in favor of command-and-control methods and strict regulation?..
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  1. +3
    24 September 2022 19: 02
    Can all the same the citizen at them will explode? BUT?
    1. -3
      24 September 2022 19: 16
      It won't help us at all. US foreign policy is aimed at political, economic and military hegemony. And in this part it does not run counter to internal moods. A third party with similar resources as the Democrats and Republicans will not be allowed to appear. And the result will be the same for us. There will be a riot in the USA, there will not be ...
      The only thing is that during the turmoil, perhaps supplies to Ukraine will be reduced. But in general, they will imagine themselves to be the defenders of peace throughout the world.
      1. 0
        24 September 2022 19: 44
        Quote: Quote Lavrov
        so they will imagine themselves to be the defenders of peace throughout the world.

        But as part of an extremely truncated territory, without the basis of its power and the most important states, with which later it is possible to conduct an equal dialogue from a position of dominance. laughing
        Fantasies, if anything.
      2. +6
        24 September 2022 19: 46
        Don't tell me, if they explode, then it will no longer look like a war between the North and the South. Rather, it will be a war of all against all, and in such conditions they will definitely not be up to Ukraine. Here, another thing is scary, the fall of the hegemon will have a very painful effect on the entire world economy, it will not be good for many, especially those who are oriented towards the United States and the dollar, including China, and with it everything else. Therefore, now everyone is looking for where to settle their straw.
        1. 0
          24 September 2022 20: 17
          Don't tell me, if they explode, then it will no longer look like a war between the North and the South. Rather, it will be a war of all against all, and in such conditions they will definitely not be up to Ukraine
          It depends on whose hands the power will be. After all, they might decide that if everything got out of control, then instead of admitting defeat, it would be easier to give the order for a massive nuclear strike against us. So that there are no winners or losers.
          1. 0
            25 September 2022 04: 33
            Those who decide will not want to die in a nuclear war.
      3. 0
        24 September 2022 19: 49
        Still, it will be easier, and there the Dragon may wake up.
      4. +1
        24 September 2022 20: 10
        This is exactly how their policy will not change from this, it speaks of who really rules in this "democracy", they are simply discharging a big bubble of their economy at the expense of others, including Europe, for no reason the Angles left the euro zone. And Grandfather prepared stickers for petrol pumps, that BB is to blame again?!
        1. 0
          24 September 2022 20: 28
          Gasoline won't get cheaper from stickers request And they are accustomed to live bohat and satisfying, but the sea of ​​\uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbarms is on hand. And they do not know what a citizen is. They have a citizen, judging by the films, this is romance.
      5. +1
        24 September 2022 22: 18
        Quote: Quote Lavrov
        A third party with similar resources as the Democrats and Republicans will not be allowed to appear.

        Yeah, in other countries, especially in the former republics of the USSR, dozens of parties are definitely needed, this is a sign of democracy, but in the USA, no, no?
        I didn’t know, but it’s cool, another two-faced policy?
      6. TIR
        0
        26 September 2022 17: 29
        Vice versa. You are fundamentally wrong. By restricting trade with Russia, they thereby force our economy to break away from the global one. That is, by gradually imposing sanctions, they give us a time lag to adjust the economy to external pressure. In the event of a global financial crisis, the world economy will fall progressively. And sanctioned economies will suffer the least
    2. +4
      24 September 2022 20: 12
      Maybe their citizen will explode after all?
      Unfortunately, I think that the security forces in the United States have enough resources to suppress the protests. And in general - I would very much like to. hi
      1. +1
        24 September 2022 20: 27
        Quote: Grandfather is an amateur
        Maybe their citizen will explode after all?
        Unfortunately, I think that the security forces in the United States have enough resources to suppress the protests. And in general - I would very much like to. hi

        If they can’t - having 400 million barrels for 360 million people - then I think that weapons are contraindicated for them. To Maxim, a drecolier and a picket fence are for self-defense
        1. 0
          25 September 2022 07: 18
          Guessing is useless, wait and see. smile
          1. 0
            25 September 2022 08: 57
            In private collections of tanks - half(!!!!!) from what Hitler went to the USSR with
    3. +1
      24 September 2022 20: 23
      Quote: ALARI
      Can all the same the citizen at them will explode? BUT?

      There won't be any citizen there, yet. To begin with, they will rob each other, all against all - well, the Wild West, what to take from them! Then a larger gang will begin to crush the weak, determine xy from xy, and begin to determine the boundaries of subordinate territories, then expand them, uniting them into ... the United States of America ...
      p.s. the water cycle in nature. 4th grade of the Soviet school...
  2. +7
    24 September 2022 19: 04
    In an attempt to contain fuel prices, President Biden has depleted oil reserves to the lowest level in recent US history.
    . By the way ... it’s impossible to replenish the strategic reserve at the expense of cheap oil from outside, now !!!
    And what about their oilmen, they don’t want to give up profits and please for the sake of native Washington in any way ???
    Apparently, the external players in the oil market already have sales no worse than before, why should they trade at a loss???
    And according to the formidable shout from behind the ocean, no one jumps up and rushes at a gallop to fulfill Uncle Sam's Wishlist!!! It is only the gay Europeans who can ruin their economies for the sake of their older brother !!!
    Well, the times have come, interesnye !!!
    1. +3
      24 September 2022 19: 31
      This is called - they try to outwit themselves ...
      1. +1
        24 September 2022 22: 01
        Does Baba Yaga disagree?
        Hi soldier
        She still lives in the illusion that this world is HER WORLD!
    2. +2
      24 September 2022 22: 52
      Quote: rocket757
      . By the way ... it’s impossible to replenish the strategic reserve at the expense of cheap oil from outside, now !!!
      And what about their oilmen, they don’t want to give up profits and please for the sake of native Washington in any way ???

      The picture is emerging that one of the goals of mattresses is a controlled increase in world oil prices. In this case, the profitability of shale oil production in the US itself will increase, the reserves of which are quite decent, but production is not profitable compared to Russia, Iran or S. Arabia. Mattresses will sell this oil to the same Europe, which they have already cut off from cheap pipeline gas from Russia and are now leading to the EU declaring an embargo on Russian oil. Energy resources for Europe will become fabulously expensive, and therefore there will be a de-industrialization of Europe with the closure or transfer of production to other countries (read in the USA) and, as a result, the strangulation of a European economic competitor with a parallel withdrawal of all cash in favor of mattresses. So Bidon and Co., deliberately creating difficulties for the United States, consider them temporary and are already counting future profits, but the Europeans, led by Vonderlein and Barrel along the way, are really "suckers" who will pay all the costs of the anti-Russian policy of their European political guides . In our time, mattresses were found by Gorbachev and Yeltsin, today they have found Vonderlein, Borrell, Macron, etc. in Europeans.
      1. The comment was deleted.
      2. +1
        25 September 2022 01: 46
        So it is, but ... a can used oil from strategic reserves to reduce gasoline prices inside the strip and sold it at an average price of 60 bucks per barrel ... it is impossible / dumb to replenish reserves at a higher price ... And according to the "normal / desired", but who will sell it to him ??? there was hope that Russia would bite into that thing and ... didn’t bite, but other oil producers showed them fool ...
        The money is budgetary and it will not work to take it for nothing ...
      3. ada
        +1
        25 September 2022 16: 06
        This is undoubted. But, the question is, is there a more significant and longer plan here?
        A few years ago, intuitively, based on current information, I began to notice the very free behavior of the United States and some of their neglect of hydrocarbons. Have you found the fundamentals in electric propulsion or in gravitational flows? Or ready for the development of hydrogen systems? Then it seemed to me that they indirectly actively participate in SP-2 and other projects on our territory, which is too bold for the purpose of military acquisition - does it mean financial gain? Or in resources? I don’t believe that such significant projects could do without them, and I was previously convinced that the gas pipeline would be completed precisely for this reason, and since there is participation, then the control of the process is somehow ensured and an impact can occur at a convenient moment. And it happened with the blocking of the launch, the withdrawal of currencies and the man-made resource crisis in Europe while maintaining part of our participation in hydrocarbons. I do not believe in coincidences, nor in endless shale oil. If there is no breakthrough in the energy sector, then who is their resource ally? Europe got the result on the collider?
        And, if the failure of all scientific research, then what remains? Decided to go to the East for resources, but obviously there is no strength for a quick guaranteed result - that's why they plunge the world economy and social structures into chaos and play on disunity and decline for a long time, balancing on the verge of TMV with the initiation of a series of regional armed conflicts? Will they wait until we weld from the inside and push forward an impoverished Europe saturated with refugees?
        And NATO? In one thing, I am sure that most of the member countries of the bloc and their satellites are used in the dark to achieve intermediate goals in the theater of operations, the WB exit from the EU is planned, and a large regional conflict is being prepared on the continent with crowds of migrants and a low level of danger for the United States the use of nuclear weapons. And, the tension in the Asia-Pacific region will be moderately maintained by themselves with the involvement of Japan, Australia and the World Bank, with an attempt to segment and weaken the SCO, with the involvement of the countries of South America and North Africa, and part of Asia.
        So what ?, a slow and long war in the European theater of operations and a quick attack by the US Armed Forces at the right time? After all, the United States does not pull out its main forces in Europe beyond the Western buffer (Germany, Italy, France) and then, the allegedly unsuccessful Defender Evurop 2021 exercises with the transatlantic transfer of weapons and military equipment and aircraft, the subsequent ones, nevertheless went according to plan, guaranteeing the accumulation of forces and means in Western Europe and a crushing blow in the heart of Russia, and the unquenchable conflict in Eastern Europe makes it possible to use, mastered by NATO troops over the past decade, military planning to organize direct armed confrontation with us (weakened) with the projection of a military threat to a significant depth of our territory, in fact, not leaving us neither time nor room to maneuver to counteract. That is, the United States, having created the most favorable and safe conditions for itself in the Eastern strategic direction along our entire Western border, will be able to put forward uncontested ultimatum demands to us in the entire range of military-political, economic and social claims declared earlier, forcing us to make concessions with external control nuclear weapons and the state apparatus, the decomposition of the political, economic and social systems and the subsequent loss of statehood. And control over our resources will be restored in exchange for the preservation of the infrastructure of the territories and population up to the Urals and Western Siberia? Then they will definitely no longer need the dollar, the dream of digital financiers will come true.
        There is one point here, military, strategic in terms of its nature and determining the nature of the implementation of the strategic concept of the United States - NATO to ensure overwhelming military superiority over us without a significant threat to its (and in fact - only to the United States) territory from the strategic nuclear forces (SNF) of the RF Armed Forces in a preemptive strike - without them occupying a geostrategic foothold in the outlines of the borders of Ukraine, it is technically impossible to implement this, at this point in time, and chaos has already been launched into the world.
        It looks like the NWO sticks out like a scalpel in front of the strained navel of the USA. wassat
  3. -12
    24 September 2022 19: 07
    I open the statistics for the USA and read, the cost of gasoline on September 21 is 3,674 dollars per gallon.
    In the spring it was 3.66.
    Who needs these cheap attempts?
    "We have a maximum level of tariff indexation from December 1, 2022 for the population in the country will not exceed 9%."
    Even if it's 8%, it's still more than 0.01%.
    1. +4
      24 September 2022 19: 16
      In September 2021 it cost 3.08 per gallon. In September 2020 it cost 2.088.
      Do you calculate the percentages?
      1. -7
        24 September 2022 19: 52
        Question about Biden and 22.
        A US gallon is equal to 3,785411784 liters. It turns out the cost of 1 liter = 1 dollar. At the exchange rate for today 58 rubles = 1 buck. The cost of AI-98 = 61 rubles.
        I don't want to post anything further.
        1. 0
          24 September 2022 20: 31
          And why are you converting a dollar into rubles ... their spending is not in rubles. fellow
        2. +2
          24 September 2022 22: 06
          They have 92, not 98, but 92 in Moscow costs 47 rubles with kopecks
          1. 0
            25 September 2022 09: 18
            They don't have a 92 at all. Russian AI-95 corresponds to the 91st American fuel.
        3. +3
          24 September 2022 23: 12
          Or you may not spread it. But you also need to take into account that the cost has fallen with the chalking of the capacities of strategic reserves. What happens when they have to be filled?
  4. +5
    24 September 2022 19: 08
    Turnout on the first day of voting in referendums on the accession of 4 regions of the former Ukraine to Russia: DPR - 23,64%, LPR - 21,97%, Zaporozhye region - 20,52%, Kherson region - 15,31%. There are still 4 days of voting ahead.
    It is clear that the turnout will be sufficient.
  5. +3
    24 September 2022 19: 08
    It's a mattress problem. chose self-propelled grandfather So we got into trouble with the oil industry. winked
  6. +5
    24 September 2022 19: 15
    And to hell with them! The worse they are, the better!
    1. +2
      24 September 2022 20: 29
      Quote: Dmitry Karabanov
      And to hell with them! The worse they are, the better!

      What is death for an American is good for a Russian!
  7. +5
    24 September 2022 19: 16
    The West has been talking for decades about the inadmissibility of regulating economic processes by the state and about the fact that the market itself will destroy everything - just because this narrative was precisely POLITICALLY beneficial.
    Now it is politically unfavorable - that's why no one remembers about the "hand of the market".
    1. +2
      24 September 2022 19: 50
      no one remembers the "hand of the market".

      Nothing new has been invented in the West since the time of Adam Smith, and all this administrative regulation is due to a lack of understanding of what needs to be done in changed circumstances. They don't teach that at Harvard. So all this has excellent chances to end sadly .. for them.
  8. +1
    24 September 2022 19: 24
    Americans do not piss, they will trample oil prices up, buy in Russia to replenish strategic reserves ..
  9. +6
    24 September 2022 19: 30
    It turns out that the West itself is abandoning the market economy in favor of command-and-control methods and strict regulation?..


    Wow, you beat yourself up...
    1. +1
      24 September 2022 19: 50
      They didn’t flog, but advanced socially - they became one step closer to socialism! laughing
      1. +1
        24 September 2022 20: 33
        Quote: Cat Alexandrovich
        They didn’t flog, but advanced socially - they became one step closer to socialism! laughing

        Will we have time to see how the United States repeats the fate of the Union? Who thinks?
        1. +1
          24 September 2022 21: 30
          Will we have time to see how the United States repeats the fate of the Union? Who thinks?

          For this, it is very desirable to avoid repeating the fate of tsarist Russia, because the United States allocates crazy money for this, and our Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defense are doing actions for which, in the days of Joseph Vissarionovich, they would have shot all those involved without trial or investigation ..
  10. 0
    24 September 2022 19: 38
    With his voluntarism, President Biden achieved short-term political dividends, but put the country's economy and households at strategic risk.

    How long does he have left? Does it make sense, at least, to bother with medium-term goals? So it is limited to short-term pleasures ... wassat
  11. +1
    24 September 2022 19: 39
    Biden knows what he is doing, he will unbalance the oil market. He has already put Europe on his gas needle, now he will put it on the oil one. Don’t forget, the main trend in oil pricing after demand is the amount of the strategic oil reserve in the United States. And there it’s up to Biden to decide what to do .USA is also a gas station country.
    1. +2
      24 September 2022 21: 59
      Quote: tralflot1832
      The USA is also a gas station country.

      this is an illusion, the United States is engaged in the sale, resale and processing, but .. at the same time it has a decent deficit, including in the dry residue of the United States an oil consumer and not as a non-seller
  12. +2
    24 September 2022 19: 40
    But what about the statement of the head of the US Treasury about that. that they will warm ALL Europop?
  13. +3
    24 September 2022 19: 42
    And why should Biden be interested in something in the long term, when they are looking for him a long time ago in the other world with lanterns?
    1. +2
      24 September 2022 20: 38
      Quote: Cat Alexandrovich
      And why should Biden be interested in something in the long term, when they are looking for him a long time ago in the other world with lanterns?

      They search badly, he himself stretches out his hands into the void - they don’t take everything away ...
  14. +2
    24 September 2022 20: 32
    Diana Ilyina, when a civil war breaks out in the United States, paper dollars cannot be used even in the toilet! And this war will be with a racist background - whites against Latinos and blacks! It will be a terrible war in which no one will be taken prisoner! The evil empire under the name of the United States must physically self-destruct !!!
    1. 0
      24 September 2022 21: 31
      Quote: EFIM LYUBIN
      Diana Ilyina, when a civil war breaks out in the United States, paper dollars cannot be used even in the toilet! And this war will be with a racist background - whites against Latinos and blacks! It will be a terrible war in which no one will be taken prisoner! The evil empire under the name of the United States must physically self-destruct !!!

      The main word is when
    2. +1
      24 September 2022 21: 50
      Blacks treat whites better than Latinos. Latinos reciprocate. Although the concept of Latinos is vague. A white native of Argentina or Uruguay may refer to himself as white in the United States, and a black native of Brazil would rather refer to himself as Latinos, rather than blacks.
    3. 0
      25 September 2022 00: 06
      This has already been seen. Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. And prosperity, and race war, and inflation, and decline.
  15. +1
    24 September 2022 20: 51
    The United States wanted to hook Europe up on its own gas - they took it and hooked it up. They wanted to play off Ukraine and Russia and took it off. And so on ... And they also have technology and production + energy resources. They also sit across the ocean ... And their PR people and marketers are the best.
    Of course, our country is the largest in the world, but if we don’t rebuild our system in a short time, they will crush it. In the meantime, we are champions in self-destruction (USSR). Sorry for the moment of pessimism.
  16. 0
    24 September 2022 23: 12
    427 millions et 7 millions semaine cela leurs permet de suivre le même rythme pendant 61 semaines...
    Et une production de 12 millions de barils jours les USA sont les premiers producteurs au monde ...Donc pour eux pas d'inquiétude mais pour l'Europe ...;-)
    https://www.connaissancedesenergies.org/les-etats-unis-exportateurs-nets-denergie-en-2020-selon-leia-220218
    1. 0
      25 September 2022 01: 29
      No one is worried about the United States, and Europe would do well to talk about itself ..... You know how Macron worries about you wink laughing
  17. 0
    25 September 2022 09: 30
    There are slightly more commercial reserves than state ones, plus there is an increase in production in the United States. Analytics is so-so, they are all right. And there is already a queue to replace the falling volumes of Russia

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