The Briefing Room
General Category => Military/Defense News => Topic started by: rangerrebew on March 18, 2023, 03:48:05 pm
-
Refilling Nation’s Depleted Petroleum Reserves Not Happening Overnight: Biden Official
By Naveen Athrappully
March 17, 2023Updated: March 17, 2023
The Biden administration remains undecided about replenishing the nation’s strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) even as oil prices have fallen to favorable levels and resources are at multi-decade lows.
Last year, the Biden administration sold 180 million barrels of oil from the SPR. In January 2021, when Biden became president, America’s SPR reserves stood at 638 million barrels. But, it has fallen to 371.58 million barrels as of the week ending March 10, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. This is the lowest level since the 1980s. The Department of Energy (DoE) has said that it intends to replenish the reserves. However, there has been no update on when this will be done.
President Biden “is still committed to replenishing the SPR after extraordinary draws last year,” Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security Amos Hochstein said in a Bloomberg interview. “Nothing happens overnight. You have to decide that this is the right environment, so therefore, you wait to see where the prices are going to be landing.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/refilling-nations-depleted-petroleum-reserves-not-happening-overnight-biden-official_5131067.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport
-
Maybe if he didn’t drive it down in the first place for political reasons…
-
Title proclaims:
"Refilling Nation’s Depleted Petroleum Reserves Not Happening Overnight: Biden Official"
What's really going to happen:
Under the current administration, it will not happen... at all.
-
At a half million barrels per day, it would still take a year to replace it.
Put that in perspective. that's the capacity of the Dakota Access Pipeline which transfers half (roughly) of North Dakota's production to market.
The US uses roughly 18 million barrels of oil per day and the difference would have to be made up either through additional imports or increased production. Biden has waged war on the domestic oil industry, effectively locking drillers out of some prime areas, so don't look for any off the charts new production from the oil companies here. They are drilling what they can, but that is limited, as are the options for getting it to market (another Biden artifact).
Siphoning off that much oil from supplies will inevitably make the price go up, so if he thinks the SPR is going to get filled cheaply, he is just plain wrong. Forcibly decreasing the market for Natural Gas by attacking the consumer end won't help, either, because that gas is a byproduct of oil production and can't just be flared (environmental rules), so the only way to limit it is to use it as a fuel or just not produce oil. If less gas is produced, less oil will be, too, and that will further exacerbate price increases for oil.
In short, that can will be kicked down the road until we get some adults in power who can reverse the regulatory damage and clear the way so we can build/expand pipeline and refining infrastructure.