United States produces more crude oil than any country, ever

[dishdude]

 

[PWMDMD]

Looking at the data only confirms the foolishness of the original policy choice to deplete it. If you look at the data against historical norms, it’s typically in the high 600 mm range. Now it is in the high 300mm range. Some of us object to the “strategic” petroleum reserve being used as the “political” petroleum reserve. Filling it up again after depleting it for nakedly political purposes does not undo the foolishness of the original policy.

Mad if you do and mad if you don’t. People don’t like high gas prices and when you try to lower the price, and one of the few things the executive can do immediately is use the SPR, you get hammered for doing it. I guess I ask…what damage has been done?

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

That is a LOT smaller than I had imagined it was. 750K barrels is nothing when you are normally outputting 12 million a day.

That’s in thousands of barrels, so the ~376k it is currently at is actually 376k thousand, aka 376 million. Still down significantly from the 638k in January 2021.

 

[RAVL]

Mad if you do and mad if you don’t. People don’t like high gas prices and when you try to lower the price, and one of the few things the executive can do immediately is use the SPR, you get hammered for doing it. I guess I ask…what damage has been done?

Your question is fair but also overlooks what if the oil had been needed because, for example, the Israel - Hamas - Iran conflict had gotten out of hand? “Strategic” has a meaning, I am sure you would acknowledge it. Stated differently, a bad idea does not become a good idea, or a prudent one, when you get lucky and get away with it.

I dislike it when politicians use policy tools to bribe the people. All sides do it but this is an example of it. What results are typically policy choices that are really devoid of merit. It’s like telling people we can solve deficits by taxing the other guy. It’s cheap, and it’s what we get when we tribalize debates instead of being idea driven.

If the effort were to lower prices, the choice would be to incentivize more refining capacity and try to come up with a single, environmentally high quality fuel standard. And, in the interim, prices staying high is the best solution to high prices in terms of driving market response.

Take care.

 

[DirectRejection]

Long live ICE.

 

[tcp71]

https://www.energy.gov/ceser/spr-fa... the Reserve?,refined products and crude oil.

lots of questions answered in this document.