US President Joe Biden promised Thursday to “relieve households” faced with rising gasoline prices. In particular, he announced an unprecedented use of the country’s strategic reserves.
Stressing that an increase in oil production would take ‘months’, he said during a speech at the White House that one million barrels would be pumped into the market every day for the next six months, ‘more of 180 million barrels.
‘This is a wartime transition,’ he said. This measure should allow ‘to increase the supply of oil until production accelerates later in the year’.
Price drop
“We will use the revenues from the sale of oil now to replenish strategic reserves,” detailed the American president, assuring that the United States would thus be “ready to face future emergencies”.
The prospect of this record spill of American black gold was already lowering prices on Thursday in London and New York. Mr Biden estimated that as a result of his decision, the price of gasoline “could drop quite significantly”, from 10 to 35 cents per gallon. The price at the pump in the United States, which exceeded its 2008 peak, is now well above 4 dollars per gallon (3.78 liters).
The White House, which the Republican opposition accuses of weighing down oil activity in the United States, also promises to “do everything (it) can” to encourage extraction.
Oil companies criticized
Joe Biden was very critical of oil companies on Thursday for “sitting on their record profits” instead of investing and producing more. “No American company should take advantage of the pandemic or the actions of Vladimir Putin to enrich itself at the expense of American families,” he said.
In particular, the president would like Congress to impose fines on companies that have the necessary permits and land, but do not operate them. Still with the idea of strengthening American energy independence, he will invoke the ‘Defense Production Act’, a text inherited from the Cold War which allows him to take economic decisions by decree, to encourage the development of green energies.
The Democratic president has been trying since the invasion of Ukraine to shift the blame for soaring inflation, including energy costs, to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, even though the rise in prices had started before.
This rhetoric does not seem to convince Americans, however, as legislative elections approach in the fall which threaten to reduce Joe Biden to impotence for the rest of his mandate. His confidence rating barely exceeds 40%, according to various polls, a very low level.
Putin ‘isolated’
Regarding Ukraine, the White House tenant said he was “skeptical” of Russia’s announcements of a partial withdrawal of its troops to focus its offensive on the Donbass region in the east of the country. “So far, there is no evidence that he is withdrawing all these troops from kyiv,” he said.
Joe Biden also felt that Vladimir Putin ‘seemed to have isolated himself’. He also said he had “indications that (the Russian president) has dismissed or placed under house arrest some of his advisers”, while acknowledging that he does not have “irrefutable proof”.
Senior Pentagon official says Russian forces have begun withdrawal from Chernobyl (north) and ‘abandoned’ Gostomel military airport, northwest of kyiv, but ‘we continue to believe this is a repositioning ‘.
“We have absolutely no indication that these soldiers are returning home, or that they are permanently removed from the fighting,” added the official.
/ ATS