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Rabat – US President Joe Biden announced on March 31 his plan to daily inject one million barrels of oil into the market to lower oil prices for consumers in the US.
Biden is authorizing, on a video conference, the release of 1 million barrels per day. For the next six months, from the vast US strategic petroleum reserve. He added that it is a “wartime bridge, in order to increase oil supply until production wraps up later this year.”
Biden’s announcement subtly indicates that US oil companies cannot reduce domestic gas prices in the near future, a key demand by US voters and a hot-button political topic ahead of upcoming midterm elections. Thus, the government must intervene to stabilize the market and drive down prices for consumers.
He further urged Congress to enact legislation that would penalize oil and gas companies that “sit on dormant oil wells or untapped federal permits,” because they are doing nothing to reduce domestic gas prices.
The global supply of oil has been severely strained due to the Russian-Ukrainian war, which in turn impacted the global price of oil.
The global price of a crude oil barrel in 2022 peaked at $128.26 (MAD 1,221.64) on March 8. This figure came close to the highest recorded price per barrel in history, which was $147.02 (MAD 1,400.33) on July 11, 2008, according to data from Macro Trends.
Read also: Global Oil Prices Reach $100 a Barrel, First Since 2014
As of Friday, April 1st, the current price of one barrel of oil sits at $99.50 (MAD 947.71), reports the same source.
The US consumed, in 2021, a total of 7.22 billion barrels of crude oil. That’s roughly 19.78 million barrels a day.
With upcoming midterm elections set for November 8, 2022, Biden is in a race against time to improve his approval numbers, a key metric to predict the losses a ruling party in the US typically suffers after a presidential election. With Biden roundly criticized for his approach to the Ukraine conflict, driving down gas prices despite his climate commitments, appears to be a short-term solution to win back voters who appear frustrated with Biden’s performance.
