Then, somehow, rather suddenly and unexpectedly, it became clear that the United States of America needed to distract for some time from the very urgent problems for the American energy markets, the outrageous gas prices in Europe, the Ukrainian GTS, Polish claims to everything at once and, of course, the absolutely totalitarian gas pipeline "Northern stream - 2 ". And even the well-known American or Ukrainian lobbyist Amos Hochstein, who is considered in certain circles almost a symbol of the struggle for the right energy resources in Europe, has more important things to do. And in the most that neither is the profile for him.
A small illustrative example. So for a variety of reasons, it turned out that, according to data voiced by the American Bloomberg agency, from January to November of this year, gasoline in the United States rose on average from $ 0.62 to $ 0.83 per liter, thereby updating, excuse me, the record of seven years ago ... As they say, even during the time of Barack Obama. That is, excuse the irony, it makes sense to paraphrase the well-known Internet meme in "there was no such thing under Donald Trump" - we are confidently telling you this. What is complete with the crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, growing inflation, slowly approaching the values of "hyper", and other small inconveniences, from the point of view of an ordinary American voter, whether he is at least three times Democrat or at least four times Republican, or at least some BLM-scumbag, looks like something completely sour.And somehow especially unrepresentative in the light of the midterm congressional elections that are inexorably looming on the current administration of President Joe Biden.
So you can't sell a democratic donkey to the electorate in Congress, in short.
Despite the total, with rare exceptions, the support of the mass media and the training of social networks.
Something needs to be decided.
“We have an energy crisis,” said Amos Hochstein, an American diplomat, as it were, specializing in energy, as a result.
"Producers must ensure that the oil and gas markets are balanced."
What can I say here?
The idea, of course, is quite fresh and at the same time fundamental in its historical significance.
And most importantly - captivating, as they say, sincerity and novelty.
But what are we going to do nevertheless?
Or, excuse me, who?
Although "whom" here, in principle, it is initially clear ...
However, in an understandable scenario, a certain, in general, predicted nuisance happened: the OPEC countries, together with the Russian Federation (quite expectedly, by the way) refused to respond to the White House's call.
And to increase oil production above the plan.
So now Washington is forced to consider all the available tools to curb prices in the domestic market, which are already politically unacceptable for the current administration.
So the strategic oil reserve of the United States went into action.
For a start - what is it.
SPR, aka Strategic Oil Reserve, is more than serious.
In this sense, the United States still remains a truly great power with a great economy, which can only afford such a reserve: SPR is more than 600 million barrels that are stored underground in Louisiana and Texas in case of serious emergencies.
Which, in the opinion of the current Washington administration, seems to be slowly advancing.
Just to be clear: this is energy self-sufficiency and America's independence from oil imports for more than a year.
And if these storage facilities now have to be printed (yes, for "insignificant", according to Bloomberg, 3.1 million barrels), then the situation still makes sense to consider it extremely alarming.
At least, it is a sin not to think so, if the US government itself considers it so.
But, first of all, the trouble began.
And secondly, according to analysts, even a tenfold increase from the SPR that is possible without introducing an emergency regime (according to current legislation, even after using "special powers", the administration can only dispose of 30 million barrels from the strategic reserve) will not affect the cost gasoline about nothing.
And America, in the best case, will only have a temporary elimination of the deficit in the oil markets and some more or less prolonged stabilization.
And even then it is unlikely.
So, if unsealing of storages in Louisiana and Texas can be viewed as an effective measure to overcome the current situation, it is only as a purely temporary one, designed, again, to temporarily stabilize the domestic American markets. At the strategic level, this does not solve the problem in almost any way. But this is at least not as funny as the letter that a group of American Democratic senators sent to President Joe Biden, urging him to ban the export of crude oil from the United States altogether. For this, according to the senators, should lower the price of gasoline for ordinary Americans so beloved by them. But, in the opinion of everyone else, these senators simply do not learn anything in principle, despite the current energy crisis: the whole world probably already knows about the grade of oil.And even an outsider, more or less qualified observer, is quite difficult to understand how the excess of oil of one type with a shortage of another can help the American gasoline markets.
Anyway.
All these problems, as we already wrote above, are rather an internal affair not even of America, but of its current democratic administration.
Here something else is more important.
Despite the fact that Bloomberg sources (consisting, however, mostly of retirees and industry insiders) reported that the United States of America "is preparing measures against OPEC +" and has almost formed a "powerful coalition" against the cartel, the position of the participants in the OPEC + agreement remains extremely hard.
And they, despite the pressure exerted, decided to maintain the previous rates of recovery of production, acting in their own national interests.
Moreover, the decisive factor here was precisely the unified position of the Russian Federation and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the largest and most responsible players with a decisive right to vote, and there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and / or to hide.
And they have reasons for this, in general, there are.
First, the high cost of oil does not mean that markets are ready to accept additional volumes.
There, according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Novak, who heads the Russian delegation to OPEC +, on the contrary, “there are a number of uncertainties”: the market is not yet recovering so steadily and it makes no sense to expose it to imbalance by a sharp increase in supplies.
Secondly, OPEC + is a rather complex structure seeking to develop a consensus among exporting countries.
And if the participants managed to reach some kind of consensus through very complex agreements, sometimes through a series of heavy mutual concessions, then does it make sense for anyone to voluntarily violate these agreements, even at the operational level?
The question is, as they say, rhetorical.
Well, as it turns out (let's be honest with our readers), the United States has real levers of influence on OPEC +, not that it does not exist at all - there are, of course.
This world is good because it is complex, and the United States (we already wrote about this above) is still a global superpower.
It's just that so far these levers objectively, in fact, do not work - and this situation looks quite ... how to put it mildly ... fresh.
And not only for attentively observing the processes of "global humanity", but also for the American authorities themselves
So you have to use other available tools, even the inviolable SPR, if only just to gain time.
And then, perhaps, somehow either overcome the crisis, or (as the worst, but quite working option) learn to cope with this crisis - or even “in this crisis” - to live.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.