It Will Take Decades to Refill Oil Caverns Biden Emptied

Bloomberg reports that massive US oil caverns wit empty and will take decades to refill thanks to Joe Biden’s historic drawdown. He sold off our oil (some of it to China) partly to cover up the rising gas prices and win elections. He’s also helping out Europe after we led the way with disastrous sanctions on Russian oil.

The reserves are at a 40-year low after Donald Trump filled the reserves when prices were low.

Biden released unprecedented amounts of our emergency reserves. He also released the best petroleum, which rests at the top.

Aging infrastructure, higher oil prices, and budget constraints have impeded the administration’s efforts to replenish the SPR substantially.

Thanks to the Biden administration, these reserve sites are sitting half-empty.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) now sits at 346.8 million barrels – a level unseen since 1983 – out of a total authorized storage capacity of 714 million.

Perhaps even more noteworthy, the emergency reserves are equal to approximately just 20 days’ worth of supply – a record low.

Replenishing the reserves will be a complicated, expensive process. Oil prices are now much higher than when most of the inventory was initially bought. The average price paid for oil in the reserve was $29.70 per barrel, which compares with the current benchmark cost for US crude futures at about $75.

And there’s the balance between needing to buy and not purchasing too much at once, lest the oil market gets spooked and prices jump higher, reports Bloomberg.

“It would be a very slow process even if you had the money and the facilities were all in good shape,” said John Shages, who previously oversaw the oil cache for the Energy Department. “It could take decades.”

Republicans were outraged because he did it to win the elections. As for Democrats, they were fine with it. Except 113 Democrats voted with Republicans to stop the sale of our oil reserves to China. Biden thinks his job is to sell the US off to China for parts.

“DOE’s mismanagement of the SPR has undermined America’s energy security, leaving the nation more vulnerable to energy supply disruptions and increasing the ability for OPEC and Russia to use energy as a geopolitical weapon,” wrote top House and Senate Republicans. Their complaints were in a May letter to the Government Accountability Office. They asked the federal watchdog for an audit of the reserve, Bloomberg reports.

The pace of refilling the SPR has been sluggish. The Department of Energy (DOE) claims they will replace barrels sold last year. They fell far short of the goal to replenish the reserves to its 2009 peak.

According to Bloomberg, the DOE indicated that it is not concerned about the structural integrity of the salt caverns. The administration’s choice to take advantage of the SPR in 2022 for political expediency drew fierce criticism from Republican officials. They called the move an act of “abuse” and beneficial to Chinese interests.

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