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The U.S. regime is considering dumping its strategic oil reserves to preserve the the stability of financial markets to the benefit of shareholders and refineries, thus exposing the American people to great risk in the event of a real domestic oil shortage.

It is self evident that the United States strategic oil reserves are indented to be used in case of a domestic oil crises/shortage as would be caused by a natural disaster to ensure energy is available for emergency services, policing, public transportation and to generally secure the well-being and safety of the American people.

But in this case the U.S. strategic oil reserves are being used to offset production losses of a private company that is based in a foreign country who's infrastructure was damaged in retaliation to an illegal war of aggression that it is waging with its neighbor?

So i ask what is really going on here? Was it a false flag (like the attack on the tankers a few months ago) to pin blame on Iran and up the price of oil to the benefit of the US fracking and domestic oil industry?

Is this a manufactured crisis by the Saudis to cut production by 1/2 because they can no longer sustain 10mil bpd because their wells are almost dry? The refinery was destroyed but not the wells, so why not send the pumped crude to neighboring refineries in the middle east to countries allied with the Saudis?


Your Thoughts....?

The only one who benefits from releases without an actual physical shortage are the politicians.

Believe it or not the USA has already released very nearly half of the strategic reserves during those same years when the world market was in a glut. This served only to drive world oil prices to decade lows in 2015-2016. This in turn severely impacted the drilling industry and led to many thousands of high paying oil field jobs being eliminated for several years. All in hopes that the party in power in 2015-16 would be able to win the 2016 fall elections and sweep into another four years on the back of cheap gasoline at the pump.

When the SPR is misused for political purposes rather than the purpose it was created for we all suffer. The oil that was sold off into the glut was placed in the reserve when prices were far higher than they were at the withdrawal, meaning the taxpayers paid the difference to let the politicians look beneficent to those not paying attention.

Tanada wrote:The only one who benefits from releases without an actual physical shortage are the politicians.

Believe it or not the USA has already released very nearly half of the strategic reserves during those same years when the world market was in a glut. This served only to drive world oil prices to decade lows in 2015-2016. This in turn severely impacted the drilling industry and led to many thousands of high paying oil field jobs being eliminated for several years. All in hopes that the party in power in 2015-16 would be able to win the 2016 fall elections and sweep into another four years on the back of cheap gasoline at the pump.

When the SPR is misused for political purposes rather than the purpose it was created for we all suffer. The oil that was sold off into the glut was placed in the reserve when prices were far higher than they were at the withdrawal, meaning the taxpayers paid the difference to let the politicians look beneficent to those not paying attention.

+ 1

The pricing thing drives me crazy. This should be looked at as a long term thing, and much of the buying SHOULD happen when prices have dropped a lot. But of course, as you say re the SPR, much of politics isn't aimed at helping the electorate, especially in the US.

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The strategic oil reserve is established as part of the IEA recommendation
It advise member states to hold 90 days worth of oil import , either in public or private storage
as the US domestic production grew , the import figure did shrink
thus making a parallel shrinking of the reserve quite logical

China is on the other side of the situation , it's massive increase in Import left it with a very small storage
the Chinese government has been building up storage barely covering its needs

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1143813.shtml