We’re finally getting an answer to a question that we’ve been posing here for more than a year. Does Joe Biden ever plan on replenishing that nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, now that he’s drained it down to levels not seen since Jimmy Carter was in office? Thankfully, the answer appears to be yes, though it’s going to take time, not to mention a tremendous amount of money. In February, Biden will order a delivery of three million barrels of oil to be pumped back into the reserve. That may sound like a lot, but keep in mind that Biden released almost 200 million barrels from the SPR over the past year. Replenishing it by three million barrels at a time is going to take many years. And that assumes that there will be enough oil available. (Politico)

The Energy Department will start with an initial request for 3 million barrels, asking companies for the barrels to be delivered in February, an official said.

The Biden administration is planning to begin refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a senior administration official said Friday, marking the end to the massive supply releases that the White House ordered to tame the sharp price spikes earlier this year.

President Joe Biden had ordered the Energy Department to begin releases from the reserve last year, and he sharply ramped up those sales after Russia invaded Ukraine in February — sending crude oil prices soaring and driving up gasoline to record levels.

That oil isn’t going to be free, by the way. The taxpayers will be on the hook for it as usual. And the price tag will be far higher than it ever should have been. Traditionally, we buy oil for the SPR when supplies are plentiful and prices are low. In February, oil prices are projected to be roughly $75 per barrel. Most of the oil that was drained out of the reserve was purchased for half as much. Doing a bit of calculating on the back of a cocktail napkin will reveal that we’ve just managed to lose roughly 7 billion dollars by the time the reserve is back up to where it was before Biden got hold of it.

And for what? The SPR is supposed to be there for use in the event of an actual emergency when a region simply can’t get enough oil to meet its critical needs. There was no such emergency in the United States over the past year. The SPR was flushed just so Biden could try to keep gas prices a little lower in the run-up to an election. And even that was a failure because those releases barely put a dent in the price of gas. Now, with the election behind us, the President is apparently willing to consider refilling the reserve.

If all of the oil had been put to good use in the United States, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad situation, but the President actually authorized selling some of it to other countries… including China. Has anyone in the press corps ever even tried to get him to explain how and why all of this happened?

This is all part of what American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Mike Sommers correctly described as the politicization of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That oil is supposed to be there for use during a legitimate emergency. And we may be facing such an emergency in the northeast either this winter or next winter if we don’t get our production levels up and our energy supply chain challenges under control.

Joe Biden and his team were convinced that voters would be angry about the price of gasoline and potentially vote for Republicans as a result. If they think the voters were upset over that, just wait and see how they react if people literally start freezing to death in New Hampshire. When a government reaches the point where it can’t even keep its people alive anymore, you don’t actually have a government.