we got so much that we have to sell. How people complain about Biden "banning oil" is outrageous.The government is obligated to find the highest possible price for assets that it sells, and sometimes US companies aren’t able to handle more oil.
Critics, including conservative media outlets, attacked President Joe Biden for selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a Chinese-owned company. Some of the coverage implies a connection between the sales and Chinese investments linked to Biden’s son Hunter.
Experts in the international oil markets, however, told PolitiFact that the sales were governed by U.S. law, and they see no way that the Biden family could have influenced or benefited from the sales.
“It’s a political talking point, and a ridiculous one,” said Patrick De Haan, a vice president with GasBuddy, which tracks gasoline prices.
What oil was sold?
The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve dates from OPEC’s oil embargo in 1973 and 1974, when an oil price shock battered the U.S. economy. It was designed to diminish the vulnerability of the United States to energy supply interruptions, according to the Congressional Research Service.The reserve has a capacity of more than 700 million barrels, stored in underground geological formations known as salt domes. The reserve encompasses four sites, two each in Louisiana and Texas.
Biden has authorized the sale of some of the reserve’s crude oil to counteract supply shortages, notably the West’s decision to cut back on Russian oil in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. The process is done through a longstanding competitive bidding process, and whoever pays the most gets the oil. (More on this in a bit.)
One batch of oil, totaling 950,000 barrels, was sold on April 21 to Unipec America, a Houston-based, Chinese-owned company. Other batches of crude oil, amounting to about 4 million barrels, were sold to companies based in other countries.
Why the US is selling stockpiled oil to China - Poynter
The government is obligated to find the highest possible price for assets that it sells, and sometimes US companies aren’t able to handle more oil.
www.poynter.org
