WASHINGTON, DC: Today, Congresswoman Jen Kiggans (VA-02) released the following statement after the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 22, the Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act. This legislation prevents the future sale of crude oil from the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve by the Biden Administration to China. This bill is the first piece of legislation that Congresswoman Kiggans has cosponsored following her swearing in on January 7.
“I’m pleased that the first bill I’ve cosponsored will strengthen our national security” said Congresswoman Kiggans. “There is no reason we should aid a country whose rapid military buildup, rampant intellectual property theft, and increasing economic warfare are aimed squarely at us; specifically, at our Armed Forces. Americans are still feeling the pain of historically high gas prices and depleting our nation’s emergency fuel supply is the last thing that we should be doing. This legislation provides a much-needed check against the Biden Administration’s shortsighted and reckless actions.”
BACKGROUND
Under the Biden Administration, the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has dropped to its lowest level since 1983: 375.1 million barrels. Over the past two years, President Biden has released millions of barrels from the SPR several times in an attempt to alleviate historically high gas prices. Additionally, the Administration has sold barrels abroad in an effort to increase the global oil supply. Unipec America (China International United Petroleum & Chemicals Co., Ltd.), which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sinopec (China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation), a Chinese-state owned oil and gas refinery group, was awarded nearly 1 million barrels in these sales.
Kudos to her for that – put a Martingale bit in Joe Biden’s mouth and yank back hard on the reins is what Joe needs.
Bravo!
In the meantime, of course, China continues to be a buyer of US oil and America continues to be her supplier:
Rigzone
“Oil Rally Continues as US Inflation Cools”
by Bloomberg | Julia Fanzeres
Thursday, January 12, 2023
Growing confidence in China’s recovery and mounting evidence of cooling US inflation buoyed crude prices for a sixth day.
West Texas Intermediate rose 1.3% to settle above $78 a barrel for the longest run of daily gains since February.
The brighter US outlook adds to growing optimism over China’s rebound.
Beijing issued a bumper batch of import quotas this week and Chinese oil companies have stepped up purchases of US and West African grades in recent days.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said on Wednesday that it expects crude to hit $110 by the third quarter if China’s economy successfully reopens, while Morgan Stanley sees a tighter second half to the year.
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Rigzone
“Oil Posts Largest Weekly Gain in Three Months”
by Bloomberg | Julia Fanzeres and Alex Longley
Friday, January 13, 2023
Oil posted its largest gain in three months this week, mostly recouping the prior week’s steep decline, as confidence in China’s recovery solidified among traders.
West Texas Intermediate rallied above $79 a barrel on Friday, capping a more than 8% weekly advance that marked its strongest week since October.
China is ramping up purchases of crude after Beijing issued a fresh round of import allowances, and consumption is poised to surge to a record this year following the nation’s dismantling of its Covid Zero policy.
The factors that drove the selloff in the second half of 2022 — Chinese lockdowns and global recession fears — are now in reverse, said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB AB.
“When China reconnects with Asia and the world, there will be a significant increase in demand,” Schieldrop said.
Oil has pushed higher after a rocky start to the year, with forecasters from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to hedge fund manager Pierre Andurand predicting prices will rally above $100 a barrel in 2023.
LOL, why has no one mentioned the profit made on the sale? We don’t see to China, Russia will sell to China. We sold oil to China when oil was at its highest. Can replenish when it’s lower.
J Wheaton, is being obtuse a skill set you had to work hard at to achieve, or are you one of those blessed with the attribute at birth?
More to the point, where are you seeing a “profit,” as if the whole point of having a strategic petroleum reserve (“SPR”) in the first place was so that Joe Biden could make a profit for himself selling it to the Chinese?
I thought the purpose of the SPR, the world’s largest supply of emergency crude oil, was primarily to reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products and to carry out obligations of the United States under the international energy program.
Where does Joe Biden selling out our SPR to make a profit for himself enter into any of that?
Enlighten and edify if you could on that subject, J Wheaton, keeping in mind that a sale and drawdown in 2011 reduced the inventory to 695.9 million barrels, and thanks to Joe selling our SPR oil to China, as of December 30, 2022, the inventory was 372.4 million barrels, the lowest since 1984.
So where is the profit, considering that as of Jan. 7, 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy has rejected the first batch of bids from oil companies to resupply a small amount of oil to the nation’s emergency crude oil stockpile in February, according to a DOE spokesperson, which means no refilling ha been done, which means there has been no profit made, and the price of oil is headed back up.
According to the Reuters article “U.S. Department of Energy rejects initial bids to resupply oil stockpile” on January 9, 2023, the Biden regime has said it wants to repurchase the oil at around $70 a barrel, and Friday, if you look right above here, West Texas Intermediate rallied above $79 a barrel.
And J Wheaton, Russia DOES sell oil to China and India and China have become the largest buyers of Russian oil as Joe Biden restricts purchases and imposes sanctions.
According to Reuters on Oct 24, 2022, China’s oil imports from Russia soared 22% in September from a year earlier.
So where is the profit of which you speak?
Business must not have been your strong suit among other topics.
First off we didn’t sell directly to China, though China has bought our oil before. The oil went up for auction on the global market. It was bought from there and went to other countries too. The Biden administration did not deal directly with China
Barrels of oil was going for $106 to $115 per barrel. Today a barrel goes for $79 So, genius if the oil was purchased at around $60-$70 and sold at $115 and can be restocked at $65 or $70, tell me what the profit was.
It’s a global market, you can’t release the SPR to just the United States. The release of oil reduces the overall price of crude. Congress lifted the ban in 2015
Your lesson for today is:
– we didn’t directly sell oil to China and China has bought oil through the auction previously
-Obama and Trump have both released oil from the SPR
– Trump had the option to add to the SPR at $20 per barrel and didn’t
– profit is the difference between what you bought something at and what you sold it for. Pretty simple, but always looking for a boogie man aren’t you
– there is no reason to restock at the moment. Oil prices are expected to fall some more.
– people think all you need to do is drill another well. Sure, wait 5 years for it to produce and then the oil from it still goes to the global market.
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J Wheaton, let me say that you are indeed the genuine article and that is a natural fact you can take to the bank.
And people like you for it, and that is another fact you can take to the bank because today, J Wheaton, let’s face it, genuine articles like you are hard for most people to find, so they and I are both so blessed that of all places to find you, it would be here in these different episodes of THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR PRESENTS – LIVE FROM AMERICA.
And as I am remembering the reality you so very graciously bring up above to jog our minds about Trump releasing oil from the SPR on the theory of (cue very huffy voice) “WELL, TRUMP DID IT, SO JOE BIDEN CAN DO IT TOO,” unlike Joe Biden, who seriously drained the SPR, bringing it down to its lowest level in 38 years, and leaving the salt caverns full of water which damages them structurally, which is only a small part of the harm Joe Biden is doing to the critical infrastructure of this nation, TO SAVE HIS FAILING PRESIDENCY AND INFLUENCE THE MID-TERMS by bribing the American people with cheaper gas, Trump did not have a failing presidency to save by selling oil from the SPR like Joe Biden did, but hey, why rely on me because who knows, my memory could be faulty, and if it was, I would be the last to know, which is why I am going to rely on this Reuters article instead titled “Trump’s budget proposes sale from emergency oil reserve” on February 10, 2020, where we have their take on reality at that time you make mention of above in a vain effort to try and justify what Joe Biden did to the SPR by the fallacious argument that piffle, t’was nothing more than what Trump did, which is as far from the truth as something could be, to wit:
WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s 2021 budget released on Monday proposed a sale of 15 million barrels of oil from the emergency petroleum reserve to help pay for projects overseen by the Department of Energy.
end quotes
BINGO, J Wheaton!
That’s both feet you got in your mouth this go round, because we see nothing there about Trump making a desperate bid like Joe Biden had to do to save his failing presidency by selling oil from the SPR, but let’s not go off half-cocked here, let’s go back for more, to wit:
Budget documents said a sale from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, which stores oil in a series of underground salt caverns on the Louisiana and Texas coast, would help raise funds for priorities including $242 million needed to fix a Naval Petroleum Reserve site in California.
end quotes
And how about that radical idea for you, J Wheaton, and this is why Democrats hate Trump so and turn puce with rage at the merest mention of his name – because Trump was going to unburden the poor taxpayers of America by selling a MODEST AMOUNT of SPR oil to raise finds to FIX OUR FAILING INFRASTRUCTURE.
But again, there may be more to9 the story, so let’s go back to Reuters to see what we can see before we make some hasty decision we would be sorry about come morning, to wit:
The budget is largely a political document that serves as a beginning point for negotiations with Congress.
But with a long-standing boom in domestic drilling, lawmakers from both political parties have supported sales from the reserve this year and next to help fund drug research and improvements at the SPR, where machinery is exposed to moist, salty air.
end quotes
Lawmakers from both parties supported the sales to help fund drug research and improvements at the SPR, where machinery is exposed to moist, salty air?
WTF, J Wheaton, how come you left that vital fact out of your version of the story?
Because it was inconvenient to the narrative you were trying to create that what Joe Biden did to our SPR was no different than what Trump did, when they are in reality apples and oranges?
Going back to Reuters, let’s get the rest of the story, as follows:
The sale would be less than the roughly 20 million barrels of oil the United States consumes in a day.
The reserve currently holds 635 million barrels, more than required under international agreements seeking to ensure that there are enough global reserves to keep oil markets stabilized in the event of disruptions in petroleum-producing countries.
Laws passed in 2015, before Trump was president, and in 2018 call for about 15 million barrels to be sold through this year and 2021.
end quotes
And there, people, is everything our dear friend and fellow correspondent J Wheaton FAILED to tell us in his diatribe above where he fallaciously equates what Joe Biden did to the SPR with Congressional mandated actions Trump took with respect to the SPR when president, and when he has calmed himself down some, perhaps he will tell us why.
J Wheaton says: profit is the difference between what you bought something at and what you sold it for.
Pretty simple, but always looking for a boogie man aren’t you
Paul Plante responds: If the goofy old Joe Biden were in the oil bidness, J Wheaton, buying low and selling high, and that oil was actually his to sell, as opposed to ours to be held in strategic reserve, then perhaps he would have booked a profit on the oil he sold to China in a bid to save his failing presidency and influence the mid-terms.
But Joe is not in the oil bidness, J Wheaton and that oil he sold was not his to sell, but he did so, anyway, and he made NO PROFIT because Joe is running our government with an increasing DEFICIT because of his short-sightedness, his shallow-thinking and just plain old garden variety stupidity honed by all his year’s as a political hack, as we clearly see in this Reuters article titled “U.S. December deficit quadruples as outlays grow, debt ceiling nears” by David Lawder on January 12, 2023, where we see the HOLE Joe Biden’s RECKLESS FISCAL POLICIES are taking us, to wit:
WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s December budget deficit quadrupled from a year earlier to $85 billion as receipts shrank slightly and outlays grew to a new December record, the Treasury Department said on Thursday as it neared the $31.4 trillion federal debt limit.
end quotes
There’s your so-called “profit,” J Wheaton!
It is a chimera and tall tale you are peddling to the unwise and gullible.
Getting back to Reuters and the MESS Joe Biden is making of our economy with his fiscal recklessness, the story continues as follows:
Underlying costs for healthcare, Social Security and interest on a growing pool of public debt are rising, the Treasury data showed.
The $85 billion December deficit compared to a $21 billion deficit a year earlier, a strong performance driven by then-record revenues and steep drops in unemployment aid as the economy recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Treasury said unadjusted receipts for December shrank by 7% from December 2021 to $455 billion as individual withheld receipts fell $14 billion due to lower 2022 year-end bonus payments and Federal Reserve earnings fell to zero from $12 billion a year earlier as it paid higher interest on bank reserves.
December’s unadjusted outlays grew 6% to $540 billion as Treasury-paid interest on the public debt grew by $9 billion from a year earlier and Social Security outlays also rose $9 billion because of cost-of-living adjustments, a Treasury official said.
For the first three months of fiscal 2023, which began in October, the government reported a deficit of $421 billion, a 12% increase over the same period of fiscal 2022, with receipts down 3% to $1.026 trillion, and outlays up 1% to $1.447 trillion, also a record for the period.
Interest on the public debt for the year-to-date period totaled $210 billion, up 37% or $57 billion compared to a year earlier.
The Treasury official said the increase was due to higher interest rates paid on conventional debt that had expanded by $1.8 trillion from a year earlier.
Funk Red China, China-Joe, KamalToe and their little dogs too!
J Wheaton says: There is no reason to restock at the moment.
Oil prices are expected to fall some more.
Paul Plante responds: Uh, okay, J Wheaton, dude, and believe me, not only all of the people of America, but those of the candid world as well, given the global reach of the Cape Charles Mirror, are hanging on your every word, as if they come down to you from above, and thus, are infallible.
Now, if they and I all follow you right, according to your theory or economics and well-run government Joe Biden style, which I think is gross mismanagement, but hey, that is just me. always looking for a boogie man as you say, which in the case of Joe Biden is like shooting fish in a barrel, they are so common, having the STRATEGIC OIL RESERVE at its lowest level in 38 years because of Joe Biden largely depleting it to save his failing presidency and influence the midterms and thus, more full of water than it has been in 38 years, is really just as good or maybe even better than having it full of oil, which is what it was intended for, instead of a lot of water, which can cause it damage, especially since the Biden-istas now admit that re-filling the SPR will likely take years, and to get an idea of the level of harm Joe Biden has done to our national security and energy security, a Politico article titled “Biden administration set to start refilling oil reserve” on October 19, 2022 informs us as follows. to wit:
Total releases from the reserve this year totaled more than 211 million barrels, putting the inventories at their lowest levels since 1984.
end quote
That is what our fellow correspondent J Wheaton wants us to believe is really good for America, because without oil in the SPR, we’re all going to0 have to go out and buy electric vehicles, which will be good for the environment and Joe Biden’s plans for a GREEN AMERICA AT ANY COST!
In a Fox Business News article titled “Energy experts say Biden plan to refill oil reserve could take years, won’t fix policy problems” by Tyler Olson on October 19, 2022 we have this take on it, to wit:
The White House Tuesday night rolled out details of its plan to refill the depleted reserve, along with an announcement that it’s releasing 15 million more barrels to help moderate gas prices.
end quotes
Right there is an admission of the blatantly political nature of Joe Biden’s releases from our SPR – Joe’s political security at the expense of our national security and energy security which takes us back to that story, to wit:
Biden also discussed it Wednesday, announcing that the U.S. will start refilling the reserve when prices drop to between $67 and $72.
end quotes
Which happens to be no where on the horizon right now with oil going up based on China re-opening, which takes us back to the story, to wit:
He (goofy old Joe Biden who is clueless as to where reality might in fact exist) called that “a good price for companies, and… a good price for taxpayers.”
But Mark Mills, an energy expert at the conservative Manhattan Institute, told Fox News Digital that Biden’s plan may leave the U.S. with a half-full reserve for some time.
“There’s a very good case to be made by a lot of very serious forecasters based on supply and demand for the world, that the range for oil prices in the coming three to five years is going to be sort of in the 80 to 100 [dollars per barrel range] on an ongoing basis,” Mills said.
Biden and the White House reject that idea and say their plan may help oil prices come down.
end quotes
And they are ignorant fools so full of themselves they can’t think straight, so of course they would, which again takes us back to the story, to wit:
The expectation that the government will buy so much oil, a senior administration official said Tuesday, will “provide industry with certainty about future demand” and “encourage near-term production.”
“That means oil companies can invest to ramp up production now with confidence they will be able to sell their oil to us in the future,” Biden said.
end quotes
Yeah, right, Joe, and what a goofy statement that is, given that just yesterday, WTI for February delivery was at $79.48 a barrel in New York, so why sell to Joe for nine dollars less a barrel?
Riddle us that if you can, J Wheaton, and as I say, everybody in the world is waiting with bated breath to see what your answer is going to be, and the suspense is building with people now literally on the edges of their seats in anticipation, so please, don’t make us wait much longer.
J Wheaton says: There is no reason to restock at the moment.
Oil prices are expected to fall some more.
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Rigzone
“Oil Posts Second Weekly Gain”
by Bloomberg | Julia Fanzeres and Immanual John Milton
Friday, January 20, 2023
Oil rallied to the highest since mid-November, capping off its second straight week of gains on optimism over increased demand from China.
West Texas Intermediate rose to settle above $81 a barrel, posting a 1.8% weekly gain.
Bolstering crude this week were forecasts for record consumption in China, a buying spree from the country’s largest oil trader and increased crude imports ahead of the Lunar New Year.
And here, speaking as one of (perhaps the only one now left) the American people who believes the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and who believes in holding elected officials, public servants, or servants to the public, not party, to account for their words and deeds, while Congresswoman Kiggans should feel some small degree of satisfaction for being able to get a RESOLUTION passed in the House of Representatives so early in her tenure, the fact of the matter is that a house resolution is symbolic, or perhaps SHAMBOLIC in this case, in that gullible and uninformed people are led to believe it means more than it means, and here I am referring to these following statements from the Kiggans press release, to wit:
* This legislation prevents the future sale of crude oil from the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve by the Biden Administration to China.
* “I’m pleased that the first bill I’ve cosponsored will strengthen our national security” said Congresswoman Kiggans.
In fact, it does neither, but let’s not take my word for it, instead let us go to the Rigzone article titled “Does USA SPR Bill Have Any Chance of Becoming Law?” by Andreas Exarheas & Rigzone Staff on January 20, 2023, where we have the following analysis, to wit:
Does the H.R.22 – Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act bill have any chance of becoming law?
There’s a possibility, according to Kenny Stein, the director of policy at the Institute for Energy Research (IER).
Stein told Rigzone, however, that he thinks it’s more likely the Senate just ignores it.
“If it became law, it would not have a huge impact since China is not a huge buyer,” Stein said.
“The only effect might be that SPR sales would bring in slightly less revenue because there are fewer potential buyers in the market,” he added.
Dan Kish, a distinguished senior fellow at IER, told Rigzone that “it’s hard to predict what the Senate will do” but added that “there is a clear bipartisan message from the House that, at least when it comes to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the U.S. shouldn’t be selling its strategic resources to China”.
If the bill does become law, Kish outlined that it would mean “very little in reality” for the U.S. oil market.
“China is increasingly getting its oil from Russia and the Middle East and now has the largest refinery capacity in the world,” Kish said.
“While Western governments are turning their backs on oil and gas, China is welcoming any supplies they can get their hands on to grow their economies,” he added.
The H.R.22 bill, which prohibits the sale and export of crude oil from the SPR to China, passed the U.S. House of Representatives on January 12 with 331 ‘Yeas’ to 97 ‘Nays’, the official website for U.S. federal legislative information shows.
As of January 19, the bill still needs to pass the senate and go to the president to become law.