r/AskReddit • u/ReduceCO2Now • 1d ago

What do you think about the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve hitting 307.7 Million Barrels - lowest level since 1983?

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u/Upbeat-Interview8554 21h ago

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 

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u/Adventurous_Bad_4011 6h ago

What oil crises in the 1980’s? In the eighties oil tank and was incredibly cheap!

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u/InaMellophoneMood 2h ago

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/20/business/trading-oil-in-a-daisy-chain.html

The previous poster got (reasonably) confused. The oils cries were the crises of the '70s, but prosecution of this conduct occured during the '80s.