find that it held excess crude oil, the excess oil could be sold to fund other national priorities.”
We haven't added to the reserves for a while.
Posted on 10/23/2014 10:33:18 AM PDT by thackney
Sen. Ron Wyden wants the United States to rethink the size and scope of its emergency oil stockpile.
Because a surge of domestic oil production has pared the United States’ reliance on foreign crude, the country may not need to stash as much away in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Wyden, D-Ore., said in a letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
“The recent shale boom is having a profound effect on United States energy policy” and making even relatively recent rules “at best irrelevant,” Wyden said. “In the case of the SPR, estimates on size are no longer in line with current net imports.”
The United States is obligated to hold at least a 90-day supply of net imports of crude oil in both public and private reserves, as part of its membership in the International Energy Agency. But based on current crude imports and domestic demand, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve now contains enough oil to keep the country running for 106 days. Wyden said additional private reserves total 141 days.
A Government Accountability Office report released earlier this week encouraged the Energy Department to examine whether the reserve is still appropriately configured, given the changing oil and gas landscape.
“The Strategic Petroleum Reserve may . . . be at risk of holding excess crude oil,” noted the GAO, which is the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress. “If the Department of Energy were to assess the appropriate size of the SPR and find that it held excess crude oil, the excess oil could be sold to fund other national priorities.”
Wyden also asked Moniz to launch “a comprehensive review of the appropriate size of the SPR as soon as possible,” including a cost-benefit analysis.
The last time the government comprehensively examined the size of the stockpile was in 2005, before oil companies began aggressively combining hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling to recover crude from previously inaccessible rock formations.
In response to the GAO’s recommendation, the Energy Department said a broader, long-range review of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is needed, rather than a study focused only on the size of the emergency stockpile.
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers have proposed some changes to modernize the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, such as adding a stash of gasoline or shifting the stockpile’s balance of heavy and light crudes, so that domestic refineries can swiftly process them.
The Energy Department is already working to establish a refined petroleum product reserve in New York Harbor and New England — with about 1 million barrels of gasoline stored away.
About $73 billion worth of oil is now stashed in the underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana that make up the reserve. The SPR was created after the OPEC oil embargo that left American motorists waiting in long lines for gasoline and fretting about the nation’s energy security.
the excess oil could be sold to fund other national priorities
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The heart of the story. Too many dollars not going to fund government pet projects. Sell the oil and line the pockets of a Solar Company, just before they go bankrupt?
Why fix the roof? It’s not raining.
Better to wait until it’s scarce and expensive before acquiring that stategic oil reserve. It’s always best to do these things in an emergency.
Total idiot.
The guy is a Dem. Therefore, I am against it.
Translation(?): “Let’s dump it on the market now so gas prices will plummet just before the elections”
Let me guess. The left finds another item they’d like to cut and if it bites them back, blame it on the GOP somehow
He’s just trying to divert things from the fact that OBOLA is the Ebola President and “is not relevant anymore” [see prospective ND(SD? Hell, I forget which!) Senatorial Candidate]
For crying out loud fellow Freepers, there is nothing wrong with thinking about this. The basic concept of whether we need to buy more reserves is fully sound given the new realities.
Nowhere in the article does it say that we sell off anything and nowhere does it say that money should be shifted to domestic spending, although if it were used to replenish the defense budget I’m sure plenty of us would be willing to think about it.
I for one would certainly be in favor of not buying any more reserves for now, if we are still doing it.
“the excess oil could be sold to fund other national priorities”
Buy it at $110/barrel, sell it at $80.
It always makes sense to reconsider how we do things, maybe we stop buying, I don’t know enough.
But to willy nilly sell to fund projects at a loss? Let’s just say I have an aversion to it.
find that it held excess crude oil, the excess oil could be sold to fund other national priorities.”
We haven't added to the reserves for a while.
“About $73 billion worth of oil is now stashed in the underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana that make up the reserve.”
A drop in the bucket for a nation the size as ours. Congress would just waste the money anyway.
We are not currently adding oil the the SPR.
Bingo. Besides, chances are less than zero (Ø and his ilk) that the sales would be tied to retiring national debt.
Crackpot...
Obama has already sold off the Reserve to pay for Golf ,Vacations and his friends in the middle east
Here’s the bottom line: The Saudi dictators are running out of oil. Their refineries are running at full capacity, and they still can’t pump out enough oil just to feed the European demand. And on top of that the terrorists are using brute force, corruption and blackmail to gain control of their oil reserves, and there’s nothing that they can do about it.
That’s why Russia is invading the Ukraine and all the rest of those ugly, miserable little former Soviet Bloc countries. They still have pipelines, oil wells, coal mines and refineries that were built at gunpoint by the Soviets back when they were in control, and they want them back.
Because Europe desperately needs oil and coal. They tried the “Green Movement”, and it failed miserably. They found out that relying on the sun and wind for energy won’t keep you warm during the brutal North European winters. That’s why Vladmir Putin has the upper hand.
And here in the USA, we have an abundance of oil, coal, natural gas and shale energy. Thousands of years worth. So does Canada, up there in the cold wastelands where the Badlands Guardian is.
But Obama’s EPA has shut down much of our energy industry with pointless fines and regulations, and now they are trying very hard to shut down the coal industry in Kentucky. Why?
Because Obama is still beholden to the Saudi princes who paid his way into Harvard, even though he was not qualified to attend any American college.
If you don’t believe any of this, then look it up. And not just online. READ A BOOK.
I do not believe that.
Their refineries are running at full capacity, and they still can’t pump out enough oil just to feed the European demand.
Refineries and oil production are really two different topics. But there is not shortage of either, that is why prices are falling.
That’s why Russia is invading the Ukraine and all the rest of those ugly, miserable little former Soviet Bloc countries.
Ukraine has relatively little oil or gas production. That is why they are dependent on countries like Russia to supply their oil & gas.
Being a registered Democrat he is immediatley disqualified for discussing serious matterss.
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