General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf the oil reserves run out in July, it's over.
Trump can kiss Mid-Term elections goodbye even if he cheats.
RockRaven
(20,080 posts)This country is truly fucked in the head.
Bluestocking
(887 posts)dalton99a
(96,284 posts)We run out of reserves at about four weeks. You know, there are reserves all over the world, and we would really run out, and therell be a time when you wouldnt be able to get it. It would be bedlam. - Donald Trump at G7 press conference
Bluestocking
(887 posts)sheshe2
(99,078 posts)America may see actual gasoline shortages by July 4 and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is running out
-The last shipment of oil from the Strait of Hormuz bound for the U.S. landed in mid-April. Senior National Security Editor Brandon Weichert argues that shortages could begin around July 4.
snip
Sadly, the SPR has sat well below these optimal numbers for years. Now, with Trumps poorly executed Iran War, the US stands to lose its SPR before the really painful disruptions resulting from this ongoing conflict hit us.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/america-may-see-actual-gasoline-shortages-by-july-4-and-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve-is-running-out/ar-AA23T8op
I wonder if it is too late to reverse this in time.
sheshe2
(99,078 posts)I doubt it.
AZJonnie
(4,220 posts)If it's currently depleting at 10-18M barrels a week and has 370M barrels, the math here suggests it's not going to be literally depleted for 20-37 weeks, that's in a worst case scenario.
It tends to get depleted when there's profits to be taken (i.e. when world prices are high), and refilled when they're low. Frankly, this is really isn't any sort of actual emergency just yet. And given that US domestic production is very close to equal to US daily consumption, there's not any serious danger of 'running out'.
However there's a lot of price arbitrage that happens because while the US exports about 4.5M barrels a day, it also imports around 5M barrels a day. "We" sell off the stuff "we" produce (specifically, the fracked stuff, mostly) that's more valuable to other countries (i.e. they have refineries better geared for it than our own), and import from still other countries (Mexico, Canada, VZ for example) that produce oil that is both 1) cheaper on the world market than what "we" sell, and 2) fundamentally more similar to what the US was producing prior to the fracking boom (and hence what most of "our" refineries are tooled to run, given most of "ours" are 40+ years old).
If the US stocks of the (cheaper) sour stuff that local refineries prefer runs low, and therefore refineries have to switch to burning the sweet stuff that's normally sold off at a profit, it's going to ramp up petrol prices to consumers at the pump. Because of course the oil refiners aren't going to just suck up the loss of profit on their own, they'll make us all feel the pain for the increase in the prices of their feedstocks.
The US is in a financial and geopolitical position such that the worst case scenario is must more 'high prices' than 'literally out' because we can always buy from other countries if we're willing to pay.