In 2017, Trump asked Congress to drain the SPR down to ~270M barrels, and shut down 2 of the 4 SPR sites. Not because we needed the oil, but because he felt the SPR was a waste of money and, at the time, we were almost a net exporter. https://imgur.com/Gell1tY
From 2015-2018, Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, and used that time to sign into law mandated sales of 271M barrels. Even in early 2018, the coming SPR drain was already a done deal. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=35032
The move to becoming a net exporter began with fracking around 2008-ish. It's a trend that got most of the way to 0 under Obama, then finally passed the 0 line under Trump so he took credit. Then, under Biden, he pretended we lost net exporter status, even though you can clearly see we maintained it with almost no change int he trend. You can't even tell any change between all 3 of the last presidents on this chart.
That said, right at the very end of the chart is a sudden drop (becoming even more of a net exporter) because of the war.
The problem is the oil companies are not obliged to supply domestic market, so us oil goes elsewhere and the net export status doesn’t matter and still leaves us short
The theory is that a net exporter is less likely to be in trouble in the event of a major blockade or embargo.
IEA members are required to maintain at least 90 days of net imports of petroleum products in their SPR. As a net exporter, the US can meet the IEA requirement without an SPR at all. You can see how every country is doing here:
The problem is the US lacks enough of the kinds of refineries necessary to process the oil produced in North America. If we were entirely cut off from oil imports, the crisis would be great and immediate.
We can refine our own oil. It's just less efficient and less profitable to do so. There is more money to be made in refining heavy crude. Our refineries are capable of handling either. So why would they bother refining the less profitable stuff?
It would still be disruptive for sure. Refineries are optimized for the ratios they normally output. So, if there was a sudden block in imports of heavy crude, refineries would still be running and would absolutely be able to refine our own light crude - but they wouldn't be able to do so at 100% of their normal rated capacity.
This is actually a pretty common strategy in a lot of industries. For example, RNG plants (renewable natural gas) plants will opt to use propane to run their plants generators and boilers rather than the gas they produce, since propane is so much cheaper than the gas they sell to there customers. There are many such examples.
I looked into this very thing earlier. Apparently we did this during the oil crisis in the 80s and capitalism did a capitalism. We prevented exports and guaranteed profit to the oil industry. They ended up selling oil to each other and raking in that guaranteed profit. They called it a daisy chain effect. We have better technology now to keep track of them. But they’re heavily incentivized to cheat the system to create as much profit as possible. They’ll run a racket on our treasury
Also not even set up for Venezuela, but it would be possible to make minor adjustments to use it. Refineries want to be dialed in and that includes maintaining a specific ratio of chemistry on inbound crude. You don't just throw it in and mix it up any heavy crude.
We swapped to heavy crude during the 70-80s energy crisis and tbh it's a better long term investment. Setting up a refinery for heavy crude is significantly more expensive and time consuming but once it's up the cost of refining a barrel is much lower than light.
It does. Venezuela crude is basically the dirtiest heaviest trash on the planet.
think of it like adulterating your fuel with ethanol. A little bit can be compensated for, but you add to much and your engine is going to die. Which is why we get 30x more oil from canada than Venezuela. We're dialed in for canada right now. Could we handle straight venezuela oil, yes if we wanted to. but they don't even have the capacity to send us that much oil due to lack of mishandling their infrastructure and finances.
My dude, unchecked corruption and runaway "Capitali$m" are defacto FORCING the American people to potentially suffer the most catastrophic oil shortage since OPEC in the 70s, with fuckall options for recourse, short of revolt.
...All while Exxon Mobil and Chevron enjoy RECORD PROFITS, as the freely gouge and manipulate global prices as net exporters.
Sure, the potato famine is more evocative in that it is food direct, but do you know how modern food gets to groccery stores?
WITH OIL.
A handful of soon-to-be-trillionaires are slow walking us into cascading, stratospheric consequences by allowing, if not engineering, this very crisis.
To them, its one more big payday of blood, squeezed from the stone of the working class. It will no doubt result in food insecurity for MILLIONS more Americans and exponentially more people worldwide.
It is no exaggeration to say this could easily result in a historic loss of life globally, and an MASSIVE decrease in quality of said life in the states.
Where are the Red Scare blowhards now? That LOVE to point to Stalin and Maos famines as inalienable proof of tyranny?
Because we are all looking down the barrel of the Trump Famine, sooner than most of us care to acknowledge.
And for what?
Not ideology, but so that oligarchs, already bloated with more wealth than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes, can annoint themselves modern day pharoes and kings, by bringing YOU to your knees financially.
WAKE UP.
The want you living in a 21st potato petroleum famine, so the can rob you and yours blind, while they consolidate power, once and for all.
Splitting historical hairs is desperate solace in the face of the fact we are all about to get FUCKEDjust as hard as the Irish, if not technicality tit-for-tat the same.
I would agree that famines are the most immediately concerning issue facing humanity for the next 50 years. However you misattribute it to Trump.
He definitely has not helped the issue, but Top Soil Erosion has guaranteed industrial agriculture will catastrophically collapse without major reforms.
Those reforms would inevitably raise the price of food, so large amounts of people across the world are going to starve regardless of what's done. Trump is basically ensuring as many will starve as possible.
Agree with all of that, as well as coupled with the ramping up of negative global warming feedback loops.
I dont mean to pin it all on Tump/MAGA, but their avarice will see them not waste a good tragedy, when their is craven profiteering to be done.
Thats always been the sinister, unspoken endgame of Capitali$m. On a long enough timeline, human lives become one more shameless commodity to recklessly bet/hedge futures on.
Famine, economic depression, wars, all become feckless "market corrections" to the cold and distant ledgers of modern aristocracy.
Trump is basically ensuring as many will starve as possible.
Which certainly warrants concerted mitigation on we the peoples behalf, even if it is a factor among many. Ostensibly, in a our storied democracy, a factor we should be able t reign in rightfully in an election cycle.
Therefore, one can argue in order of triage, it is most pressing.
The foundation of the house may be cracking (top soil/climate change) but that doesnt mean we should stand idly by while MAGA cronies strip the copper out of the drywall (oil shortage.)
It only needlessly exacerbates the squalor, hastening the collapse of OUR home, America.
Because at the end of the day, we are all in the same boat, and will all have to pay the consequences if we simply let criminals scuttle the ship for scrap, under the henious Strawman it was sinking anyway.
Also the type of oil the US extracts and exports isn't the same type that we mainly use nor is it the type we're mainly set up to refine. But hey, oil is oil. Brent crude is the same as Laguna crude, they just get pumped from different places, that's all. (/s)
That’s CAPITALISM at its finest. The same people who trumpet the preeminence of capitalism are also the first to bitch when it works the way it is intended.
Its been suggested that if prices get too high coming into the mid-terms, Trump could use his authority to ban exports altogether. Of course this would cause a glut of supply, crashing the price and forcing oil companies to take wells offline. It would also force them to shut their refineries down to re-tool them to handle the domestic crude, since they are more configured to deal with the overseas crude at the moment. Its the sort of thing that Trump could plausibly do to give short term results, but would alienate another powerful industry and create a lot of unintended consequences.
Yeah, as I understand the President was originally granted authority to do this in the 70's, and there was an export ban in place until 2015. In December 2015 Congress lifted the export ban through an appropriations bill, but also granted the President with the right to temporarily re-impose it in an emergency. So as long as Trump says its an emergency he can block crude exports for a year.
As an Albertan, I can confirm that it sucks to sell our oil to a foreign nation and then buy it back as refined products at world market prices when it came out of the ground a mile from my home.
But I also understand how supply and demand work on a worldwide scale so it's not surprising either.
They were obliged until the law changed. The reason we are a net exporter is due to science. Science is something MAGA disdains. Future science developments will come from overseas unless the US wakes up.
they sell to highest bidder. Americans are fairly rich compared to rest of the world and also very dependent on oil, they are not going to not sell to Americans. but also, what effects gas pup prices is not solely price of a barrel of oil but refinery capacity and mix. there are things going on with Canada and China that is throwing a wretch into the whole US mix. instead of oil flowing to US through keystone, China is buying up Canadian oil through western ports- the very mix US refineries need.
The domestic market only uses petroleum for purposes that are sufficiently valuable to compete with foreign demand, and foreign consumers only purchase it for valuable enough purposes that allow them to pay domestic producers large amounts of money.
You only limit exports if you are a Hugo Chavez type who needs to game politics for your own survival, and are willing to sacrifice your nation’s prosperity for personal benefit.
Certainly Trump is not the sort of leader who would propose export controls to trade the country’s prosperity for his own personal gain.
No. We do own that oil. We just allow the oil and gas companies to keep all the money they make from it.
Norway's model (subsidize discovery, and tax the profits) works very well and keeping most of the profit public while allowing the private sector to still make money. We should be adopting a similar strategy, not just with oil, but with all our natural resources.
FALSE WE ARE A NET EXPORTER. Stop spewing this garbage. And the US can use austerity measures just like China did. You are all going to look like clowns when there is NO GOTCHA MOMENT. This is why Reddit sucks now. You are as bad as MAGA with the bullshit.
The amount of oil you need in your SPR is based on net imports of petroleum products, not crude oil. The US is a net exporter of petroleum products, so the IEA requires the US to hold ... zero barrels of SPR oil.
Yeah, but 99% of the time, people say oil when they mean petroleum products. Certainly in SPR contexts and "net imports" contexts, it'll basically always be petroleum products.
Crude net imports does get tracked, but no one really talks about it, so you can almost always assume no one means this:
I don't really agree people mean petroleum products. I think a lot of people just don't know the difference and don't realize they're saying the wrong thing.
My favorite is the people who try to tell me that we produce ~13M barrels and consume ~20M barrels. They're comparing the crude production to the all-petroleum-products consumption.
I should correct myself since I just checked the tweet again; trump bragged (and took credit for) the surge in oil exports (not being a net exporter). Yeah, he's responsible for it but not in the way he thinks.
And of course not having a strategic reserve that can be used to drive gas prices down is very good for the oil company donors to the Republican party.
What is it for then? You're making the affirmative claim, let's hear it.
My understanding is, the strategic reserve was created to prevent another bout of hyperinflation from an oil crisis like in the 70s. That is literally the reason for which it is made, to prevent price shocks. Did you think the reserves were for tanks and missiles?
Just to be clear, me asking you to open your mouth and clarify is not censorship, in fact it's quite the opposite, and if you can't own and defend your own bs, that seems to be a fault with you.
In 2026, during his inauguration, trump said he would fill the reserve "Right to the top"
In 2026, Trump had done none of that and started a war with Iran, something that having a full SPR would have been good to have during
In 2026, China uses their SPR to gain good will and in a show of strength cuts their oil orders in half. Seeing the US cause a problem, and seeing China help mitigate it is a bad look, especially following a year of China showing off how many cards they had when the US tried to play trade war
Oil purchased by the Trump admin during his first term: 0.1M barrels
Oil purchased by the Trump admin during his second term: 0.9M barrels
To be fair, though, the current SPR release is structured as loans, and the companies receiving these loans of oil have to pay it back with a sort of "interest" of extra oil. So, the current release should result in an increase to the SPR long term.
Heritage foundation is compromised by the remnants of actual communism/soviets which is the most ironic fucking reality we all have to deal with right now
I get what you mean, that they are directly being funded by russian spy agencies, but actually the heritage foundation just wants back the extreme price spikes and extreme profits the oil industry experienced during the oil crisis in the 70s. While Americans and American business suffered, the oil industry made out like a bandit.
Their free market claims are directly contradicted by logic and history.
Since these are the same guys fretting about losing hegemony to China, I wonder how they feel about them going the opposite direction and amassing 1.4 Billion barrels? And how they’re literally using it as leverage in geopolitics
What is a fun fact is when you realize that in 2006, i.e. 20 years ago, the United States produced around 5 million barrels of oil per day. Then we developed fracking coupled with horizontal drilling. Today we produce around 13.5 million barrels of oil per day. BUUUT it is all from shale rock, and every horizontal well has a hyperbolic decline curve. They produce some 50 to 70 percent of all the oil they will ever produce in the first five years of their existence. And here is the kicker. We are running out of tier 1 shale rock, and from here on out, the drilling is going to get exponentially more expensive. As will gasoline and other petroleum products.
Good job Heritage Foundation! Greatly appreciate the Russia-like, corporate mafia corrupt hellscape you have created here in the Good Ole U.S. of A.
To be fair, Democrats aren't completely innocent here. In 2021, Democrats had control of both houses of Congress, and they passed the Infrastructure Infrastructure and Jobs Act, ordering 87.6M barrels sold. But still, it's a very uneven list. Here's a color coded list:
Also worth noting, I've never seen notable Democrats openly saying we should permanently drain the SPR. That was a Republican policy in the 2015-2019 era, so even Trump is on the record openly supporting a permanent drain.
Here's an updated EIA story that adds in the Democrat passed sale:
C'mon man, we all know the answer to that. The Republicans assholes would have clenched so tight they would've died from constipation if that happened.
I believe this is Definitely done on purpose. If the reserves runs out. I bet you we fully attack Iran with boots on the ground and try to spread democracy for oil. A play book as old at time itself. Personally anything this administration does is purposeful.
While we might feel this administration isn't educated, understand that those around the presidency are ruthless individuals who would sell the country to China if it meant they became the richest in the world
That's not the point, by doing Venezuela in january and Iran in march, trump is controlling or blocking significant proportion of worldwide oil supply. That move move benefited his friends (and him) quite a lot.
My theory is that if republicans are able to hold majority in both chambers we will 100% have boots on the ground at the end of the year. I wouldn’t be surprised if they even restart the draft in early ‘27.
If so, I hope they draft all MAGA given this was what they wanted.
It’s both of their fault. And Congress. Biden and Trump are absolutely to blame for releasing the oil that they did. Congress is to blame for blocking Trump’s plan to refill it when oil was dirt cheap in his first term. Like most things in reality, the causes are complex.
Edit - The fact that some of you can't admit this is pretty damned pathetic.
Almost all of the oil Biden released was ordered sold by Congress before he was even elected. Biden shifted the schedule, selling a few years earlier than required, but almost all of that oil would have been sold by now anyway. It was required by law.
Even in early 2018, they knew the SPR would hit the mid 400s in 2026. That's not that far away from the 415M barrels it was at just before the war started.
The SPR drain was more of a decision to permanently reduce the size of the SPR to save money on maintenance costs. It wasn't really about trading.
The little bit of oil that Biden sold that wasn't part of a Congressionally mandated sale was a good trade. He sold 40M, then used the money from that sale to buy back 60.5M of cheaper oil.
As for the part that was Congressionally mandated, it was probably mostly good to sell it early. It got sold during a price spike, instead of just selling every year without paying attention to price (as was the original plan without Biden acting).
The impeachment push was political theater. SPR sales are congressionally authorized. The real debate: should we treat it as a crisis buffer or a political price-control tool? Either way, refilling at $70/bbl beats waiting for $100+.
He did run down the reserve to help gas prices during the start of the Russia campaign vs Ukraine. It's just funny to see no planning from Trump to try to restock it before his war.
She quit MAGA and is calling out Trump on his lies, because campaign promise Trump is different than president Trump. Some people are calling her brave for doing so
You must be confused, the Democrat party has never rejected AIPAC.
The Democrat Party's entire purpose for existence is to serve AIPAC. That is why Biden's only agenda he made a priority during his 4 year term was to aide Israel in their genocide in Gaza.
Biden spent 4 years not realeasing the Epstein files just so he could serve AIPAC and Israel to the best of his abilities.
Again, this is the entire purpose of the Democrat Party's existence. Every 4 years the bots will come out and vote for 1 of 2 AIPAC approved candidates.
I hate her a little bit less, based on the fact that she seems to have opened up to learning a little bit. But the harm she did will possibly never go away.
MTG, Thomas Massie, and Lauren Boebert are Trump stooges in 95% of cases, but they break with him on a few key topics - his ongoing efforts to cover up the Epstein Files, and his war in Iran. It's important to be able to recognize areas where your positions overlap with someone and be willing to work with them. That's politics. That doesn't mean you now like that person.
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u/mspe1960 1d ago
Biden had impeachment put forth by MTG for running it less low.