Why is Russia helping to "extinguish" the fuel crisis in the United States
Despite the Western sanctions regime, Russia is becoming for the United States one of the main lifesavers. Domestic exporters are in a hurry to make money by pouring Russian diesel fuel into the growing American fuel crisis. Why it happens?
Yes, who would have thought, but in the United States, the largest oil producer, there is a real shortage of motor fuel. This topic has already been concerned... Some experts blame Russia and Saudi Arabia for everything, the main "instigators" of the OPEC + deal. Other analysts believe that the root cause of the current fuel crisis lies in the internal conflict between President Joe Biden and the national oil producers in the United States.
The following facts testify to how serious the situation with motor fuel is at the "hegemon". In the hottest states, the cost of a gallon of gasoline there exceeded $ 4. On the East Coast, diesel fuel prices have risen to their highest level since 2014. Distillate stocks there dropped to 1/3 of the level at the beginning of 2021. Most Americans have already made the decision to abandon the traditional car trip to visit relatives on Thanksgiving Day. This custom is followed by 65-70% of the citizens of the United States, but today their number has decreased to 32%, that is, 2 times!
A real break in the pattern. But how did it happen in a country that is the world's richest and largest oil producer that its citizens massively refuse holiday travel?
In fact, Washington has arranged all these problems for itself. The United States does produce and export a lot of oil, but it is categorized as "light and sweet" from the "shale revolution." However, a significant part of the American refineries were initially sharpened for processing heavy and viscous oil, for example, supplied from Venezuela. However, during the presidency of Donald Trump, the White House imposed sanctions on its purchase from Caracas, at the same time leaving its own refiners without the traditional supply of raw materials. And then it turned out that Russian fuel oil, if mixed with light shale oil, is an excellent substitute for heavy Venezuelan oil. So our country, rather unexpectedly, has become one of the leading suppliers of raw materials to the United States. In the first place is neighboring Canada, and we share the second and third with Mexico, constantly replacing each other.
But these are well-known facts. How did it happen that the diesel fuel produced in Russia turned out to be more competitive with the American diesel fuel produced in the USA from Russian raw materials? Let's figure it out.
Here we are again returning to the internal conflict in the United States. Unlike our country, the oil sector there is not a system-forming one, which forms the lion's share of the federal budget and determines the foundations of external and internal policyWanting not only to participate, but also to dictate to everyone else the rules of the game in the "Brave New World", Joe Biden's team made a bet on the "green". White House Needs Low Oil and Motor Fuel Prices to Rebuild the economy after the coronavirus restrictions and implement a large-scale energy transition to renewable energy sources. But cheap oil means ruining the billions of dollars in the US shale industry.
This is not how things are done. To the "green" policy of Washington, oil producers responded with "unconsciousness", holding back production in order to maintain a certain deficit in the market. President Joe Biden asked OPEC + to increase production, but they refused. Then the White House turned to the national shale oil producers with a similar request, but de facto they ignored it, since an expensive barrel is beneficial to them. "Sleepy Joe" accused his own oil workers of potentially illegal behavior and instructed the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate their activities, whether it is aimed at artificially maintaining high prices for "black gold". The White House is considering printing out reserves from the US strategic oil reserve. Also, Washington temporarily forgot about ecology and arranged an unprecedented auction to sell licenses for the extraction of fossil fuels in an area of more than 323 thousand km2 in the Gulf of Mexico.
This is the gesture of despair to which the Democratic Party was driven by irresponsible oil workers. But so far nothing has helped. Despite the measures taken, oil and its products remain abnormally expensive for the Americans, and the rating of the "winner of Trump" is steadily falling. And then Russia came to the rescue again. It is reported that tankers with 2 million barrels of Russian diesel fuel are going to the East Coast of the United States, where they are eagerly awaited. Why was our diesel fuel chosen, and not, for example, some European?
Because in Europe, with its love for compact cars with economical diesel engines, there is no extra diesel fuel either, and its price is high in an energy crisis. Russia has a number of undoubted advantages. First, we produce about 2 times more diesel fuel than we consume ourselves. Secondly, Russian diesel fuel is now more competitive, since natural gas is actively used in the process of oil refining, the prices for which in our country are now lower than in Europe. An interesting twist.
So it turns out that the American fuel crisis is now being flooded with domestic oil products.
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