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Showing Original Post only (View all)Biden announces historic oil reserve release, along with other steps, to reduce gas prices [View all]
Source: CNN
(CNN)President Joe Biden is announcing an unprecedented release of oil from US reserves and taking steps to punish oil companies for not increasing production from unused leases on federal land, the White House says. The steps are an attempt to reduce gas prices while also putting an onus on oil companies to increase supply. The dramatic step confronts what has become a looming political problem months ahead of the midterm elections.
"After consultation with allies and partners, the President will announce the largest release of oil reserves in history, putting one million additional barrels on the market per day on average -- every day -- for the next six months," the White House said. "The scale of this release is unprecedented: The world has never had a release of oil reserves at this 1 million per day rate for this length of time. This record release will provide a historic amount of supply to serve as bridge until the end of the year when domestic production ramps up."
The release would amount to 180 million barrels of oil. Biden earlier in the month announced a coordinated release of oil from the reserves in conjunction with other nations. He also released around 60 million barrels in November, which he said at the time was the largest release from the reserve in US history. Neither move had a significant effect on gas prices, which have continued to rise as global limits on Russian energy exports have caused prices to spike.
The United States consumes around 20 million barrels of oil per day, with global consumption hovering around 100 million barrels. Biden's planned releases would put more oil on the global market, potentially bringing down costs.The President is also calling on Congress to "make companies pay fees on wells from their leases that they haven't used in years and on acres of public lands that they are hoarding without producing." For months, the Biden administration has publicly pushed back on the idea that regulations are holding oil producers back from more domestic production, pointing to millions of acres worth of land with approved permits for oil and gas production.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/strategic-petroleum-reserve-release-oil-joe-biden/index.html
As a note - back in 2020 when Saudi and Russia were in their oil production/price war - both trying to spite each other and take out the fracking here, the U.S. was snapping up the cheap oil and filling the reserves. At one point (and I have posted this before), oil dropped down to almost -$40/bbl -

