Posted on 05/21/2019 12:45:04 PM PDT by Eddie01
As of May 2019, US imports of Russian oil amounted to some five million barrels, while American refineries imported a total of 7.5 million barrels in all of 2018.
The US has rapidly increased its oil imports from Russia, with a total of 13 tankers carrying five million barrels of crude and oil products arriving in the first half of May amid dropping Venezuelan crude production due to Washington's sanctions, Bloomberg reported, citing Caracas Capital Markets managing partner Russ Dallen. The latter described Russia's crude export as being "on steroids", stating that the import of Russian oil by American refineries is set to triple.
The news agency noted that total US oil imports in February 2019 were estimated at over 16 million barrels, while a year ago it stood at 20 million barrels. Over the course of 2017, the US imported 1.5 million barrels of oil from Russia, with the number growing the following year, amounting to 7.5 million barrels.
Washington's sanctions have impacted Venezuelan oil exports, but haven't crippled them completely. The decline in Venezuela's oil exports, along with production cuts by OPEC+ countries, has led to a rise in oil prices. The US claims that the sanctions were imposed in order to force elected President Nicolas Maduro, who is struggling to lead his country out of a political crisis amid economic problems, to resign.
The White House has also imposed sanctions against Russian oil producers, cutting them off from US-made equipment and some foreign investment, claiming that Moscow was behind the Ukrainian crisis in 2014 and meddled in the 2016 US presidential elections. Russia has denied all the accusations, pointing to a lack of evidence.
The US also plans to impose sanctions against Russia's major Nord Stream 2 gas project in Europe in a bid to persuade the EU to switch to other energy sources, such as American liquefied natural gas (LNG).
No. economics.
FWIW...
“Sputnik, formerly The Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti, is a news agency, news website platform and radio broadcast service established by the Russian government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya.[2] Headquartered in Moscow”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_(news_agency)
May have something to do with needing more “light” crude? Apparently we don’t produce enough domestically.
The money spent on Russian crude will circle back and be used to prop up Maduro.
Does that mean we are paying for the fuel pf the intercepted warplanes over Alaska? ;)
I know, but they report on interesting topics. My experience is their articles are substantiated.
I’ve found them to be a much better source than CNN, MSNBC, WoPo or NYT which are regularly posted here.
“May have something to do with needing more “light” crude? Apparently we don’t produce enough domestically.”
No, the Permian Basin is overflowing with light crude.
It’s actually the crappy heavy crude that is needed — because US refineries were built by engineers that assumed imports of crappy crude.
low quality Russian crude is a good match
for US=refineries
The fuel would not know the difference...
Heck, even Al Jazeera is a better source for news then CNN, MSNBC, etc.
Yep, we’re putting the light stuff in ships to send it overseas.
That’s a really low bar.
Strange as it sounds, US refineries are optimized for a certain level of crude oil. Because the US is producing ultra-light crude, we need to purchase thick, low quality crude to mix into the batch to run the refineries at the optimum level. That is probably what Russia is sending us.
Strange as it sounds, US refineries are optimized for a certain level of crude oil. Because the US is producing ultra-light crude, we need to purchase thick, low quality crude to mix into the batch to run the refineries at the optimum level. That is probably what Russia is sending us.
As Russia is a majory enemy this is unacceptable.
16 million barrels is less than one day’s supply (21 million barrels). Why the increase? Because we now are heavily in the business of processing oil for other nations?
Ah. A NeoCon spotted in the wild. Still enjoying the cold war?
At best Russia would rank 4th on the list of threats to the US.
Sounds fine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.