The price of gasoline in my Silicon Valley California is about $4.35 per gallon
I wonder when MAGAs will start asking Trump if he had refilled our Strategic Petroleum Reserve yet, considering that crude is hovering near $60, which, IIRC, is below the price at which Biden released the reserves. I remember Republicans complaining loudly about it at the time.
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You expect too much self-consistency from politicians. Itâs clear that 90% of the positions are not moral/ethical ones but only posturing meant to score points.
Considering geopolitical climate is not any better than before, I think itâd be smart to replenish our strategic reserve back up when itâs cheap to do so. But not gonna happen if thereâs a chance the purchase could goose gas prices up slightly (no matter how little) when sustainability is a continuing issue. Principles (expressed in outraged uproar before) on what our strategic reserve level should be, are going to be strangely MIA suddenly nowâŚ
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Maybe because heâs already started to refill? This is from October but itâs in the works.
US seeks 1 million barrels of oil for Strategic Petroleum Reserve
WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy said on Tuesday it is looking to buy 1 million barrels of crude oil for delivery to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as it seeks to take advantage of relatively low oil prices to help replenish the stockpile.
The previous administration of former President Joe Biden sold record amounts of oil from the SPR, including a 180-million-barrel sale after Russia, one of the worldâs top oil producers, invaded Ukraine in 2022. The reserve, which has about a 700-million-barrel capacity, is now holding nearly 409 million barrels
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I know they dont want to spike the market so itâll be a slow process, but adding 1 million barrels to space for nearly 300 million barrels barely counts as trying in my mind. Although I dont know how low Biden drained the reserve, so there may have been more progress than this one reported buy.
Frankly, Iâm surprised Trump hasnt tried to announce that one of his big oil âbuddiesâ is donating off-market oil to refil the reserve. Seems like something heâd try to take credit for, even if the reality was that buddyâs selling the government the oil at double the market price.
On one hand, itâs good to see that Trump added 1M barrels but I agree that it seems like a drop in the bucket on a 700M reserve capacity.
Did GOP (or Dems) ever state a ballpark for what level they thought the reserve should be at for strategic purposes? Barely above half capacity currently doesnât sound prudent to me to absorb the next oil crisis so I think itâd still be a good idea to add some. Maybe a slow addition over time would not affect gas prices too much. Say 10M/month for 12-18 months to replenish most of the 180M Biden sold.
Here are amounts since reserve opened. See https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCSSTUS1&f=M You can see the drawdown by the Biden regime.
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Either that, or is it prudent to continue maintaining all that excess compacity?
Surely there is some calculation/explanation for what the reserve size should be based on our needs. Without a clear target, any level seems arbitrary to me.
Still based on historic levels which have been over 500k barrels in the last 40 years, getting it back over that level seems pretty safe.
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Fed keeps rates steadyâŚ
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While I was not expecting a rate cut, Iâm still surprised at the assessment that the economy has shown signs of improvement. Inflation has not gotten better (or worse) from a year ago but job market is still as frozen as ever with unemployment way above what it was a year ago. Dollar has weakened significantly showing declining global confidence so Iâm not sure where they saw much gains to justify the statement.
Your personal inflation rate depends very much on where you live. In California, taxes and regulations have led to the closing of two gasoline refineries recently. The only place to get gasoline is from other states, but the Jones act requires shipping between states to go on US ships, which are not available. So California has to import gasoline from international locations.
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Hopefully they can do something about that law, that seems dumb.
Not helping inflation numbers for sure. Or affordability. For those who own stocks like most here, probably a decent trade-off. But for those who donât, theyâre only subsidizing Wall Street earnings without getting anything in returnâŚ
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