Republican opposition reproaches the white house of plumbing oil activity in the United States.
Le Monde with AFP
The American President, Joe Biden, faced with record inflation mining his popularity, will draw like never in the huge US oil reserves to try to curb the prizes at the pump.
He ordered a million barrels a day in the strategic oil reserves for six months, an “unprecedented” initiative in American history, announced the White House, Thursday, March 31. The prospect of this American black gold record spill was already lowering the courses, Thursday, London and New York, about 5%.
This initiative must, according to a statement of the American executive, serve to “make the transition until the [American] production increases at the end of the year.” The US administration will use the revenue from the sale of these reserves to reconstruct the stocks “in the coming years”.
The White House, to which the Republican opposition reproaches the oil activity in the United States, promises to “do everything [it] can” to encourage extraction on the American territory. Joe Biden asks, for example, now to the Congress to impose fines with the necessary licenses and lands, but who do not exploit them.
Always in the idea of strengthening American energy independence, the President will invoke the Defense Production Act, a text inherited from the Cold War that allows him to make economic decisions by decree, to encourage the development of green energies. .
Salt caves
The Democratic President tries since the invasion of Ukraine to bring the blame of the outbreak of inflation to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, even though the price increase had begun before. But this rhetoric does not seem to convince the Americans, whereas the legislative elections approached in the fall that threaten to reduce Joe Biden with impotence for the rest of his mandate. Its confidence side barely exceeds 40%, depending on various polls, a very low level.
US US strategic reserves were created in 1975 to counteract oil shocks. Buried in huge salt caverns up to 800 meters deep along the Gulf coast of Mexico, they can store up to 714 million black gold barrels but currently count 568 million barrels.
The US administration is already continuously drawing on these strategic reserves since the fall, when rising oil prices has settled: it has announced in November to unlock 50 million barrels, and then again 30 million. early March.
inflation
According to the last inflation indicator, the PCE index published Thursday by the Commerce Department, consumer prices continued their escalation in March in the United States, up 6.4% on a year and 0.6% over a month. At the approach of the mid-term legislative elections, the White House has made the fight against this price period – never-seen since the 1980s – one of its priorities.
Oil has, indeed, tuned on March 7, historical price records reached during the 2008 financial crisis, exceeding $ 130 on a barrel, before descending between $ 100 and $ 110. The price of gasoline at the US pump has exceeded its 2008 peak, well above $ 4 gallon (3.78 liters).