Joe Biden’s decision to release 180 million barrels of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve was meant to help lower US gasoline prices “because Putin price hike.” Instead, it is heading for Europe.
According to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, the Suezmax ship Advantage Spring – sailing for Rotterdam, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg – received emergency SPR sweet crude from Energy Transfer’s Nederland oil facility around April 1 for export.
The Suezmax also received SPR crude from Aframax Eagle Hatteras, which loaded at same terminal in first week of April.
The Advantage Spring was chartered by Atlantic Trading, an affiliate of Total, ship fixtures data show.
It appears that somehow the definition of emergency now includes making a profit at the expense of American consumers because sooner or later a real emergency will hit and then it will be too late, while easing the true energy emergency over in Europe.
According to Matt Smith, oil analyst at commodity data firm Kpler, this is the first export of SPR crude since last November. Which means the oil was apportioned from Biden’s shock SPR release.
One wonders what is behind Biden’s decision to make US emergency SPR oil available across the Atlantic; one can only hope that it doesn’t mean that in the coming midterms mail in ballots will also be made available to Europeans.
