Consequence of the Ukraine war: Biden announces "historic" release of oil reserves
Created: 04/01/2022, 20:36
By: Vincent Bussow
Joe Biden announced that US oil reserves would be released.
Gasoline prices had risen sharply as a result of the Ukraine war.
(Archive image) © Patrick Semansky/dpa
The world markets are suffering from the consequences of the Ukraine war.
Joe Biden wants to counter the high oil prices in the USA with a massive release of emergency reserves.
Washington DC – Joe Biden* wants to counter rising gasoline prices in the USA* by releasing oil reserves like never before.
As the White House announced on Thursday (March 31, 2022), an average of one million barrels of crude oil are to be released over the next six months.
This corresponds to a total of 180 million barrels, equivalent to 29 billion liters.
The rising oil prices are a consequence of the Ukraine war*.
The idea behind the "historic" release is to depress the market price of crude oil.
After the announcement, the price of a barrel of North Sea Brent fell by more than five dollars to $108.21.
US President Biden was unable to answer the extent to which the measure would ultimately be reflected at the gas pump.
He thinks a reduction of 10 to 35 cents is possible.
Ukraine war: Joe Biden releases US oil reserves
After Russian President Vladimir Putin* ordered the invasion of Ukraine*, Joe Biden imposed an import ban on oil from Russia*.
The tighter supply contributed to rising prices, with the US already struggling with high inflation.
In his announcement, Biden now spoke of "Putin's price increase", which is a burden on the Americans.
The emergency oil reserve of the USA is intended to guarantee access to the important raw material in the event of natural disasters and national security crises.
As early as November 2021, well before the escalation in the Ukraine conflict *, Joe Biden had announced the release of 50 million barrels from the reserve.
US Strategic Oil Reserves | |
|---|---|
Maximum capacity | 727 million barrels (as of 2022) |
founding | 1973 |
storage locations | Gold of Mexico, Texas, Louisiana |
After import stop from Russia: Biden wants to boost national oil production
So while the US wants to flood the market with oil, the big producers aren't planning to increase production.
Also on Thursday, the oil alliance Opec+, which also includes Russia, said that it wanted to maintain the level of the past few months.
The reason for this is that the price increase is mainly due to the Ukraine war and demand has not increased.
As a result of the Ukraine war, the USA, like Germany, are planning to become independent of oil from Russia.
While Federal Minister of Economics Habeck is looking for other importers, Joe Biden wants to further boost oil production in his own country.
By the end of the year, around one million barrels more will be produced per day.
(vbu/dpa)
*fr.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.