The White House reportedly is thinking about tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, renewing discussion of the reserve’s real purpose – whether it’s to protect against serious supply disruptions or to counter price spikes. We’d argue for the reserve’s strategic role – and suggest that if the administration wants to improve its energy standing there are positive choices that would have lasting impact.

We’ve discussed the reserve’s importance in protecting the United States from dire supply disruptions before. Current talk of a reserve draw down has some saying the administration may be more concerned with domestic politics than with the strategic energy picture. Houston Chronicle business columnist Loren Steffy, in a piece headlined: “Maybe we should rename it the ‘Political Petroleum... more »

Scroll down a bit in this wrap-up of last weekend’s G8 Summit from The Hill newspaper, and you’ll see that the president and other G8 leaders hinted that they might ask for a draw on the world’s oil reserves to offset disruptions in supply from Iran. Their statement:

“There have been increasing disruptions in the supply of oil to the global market over the past several months, which pose a substantial risk to global economic growth. … Looking ahead to the likelihood of further disruptions in oil sales and the expected increased demand over the coming months, we are monitoring the situation closely and stand ready to call upon the International Energy Agency to take appropriate action to ensure that the market is fully and timely supplied."

The Hill says the White House was mum on... more »

Update: The author has changed the article, without noting so. Original article here. The new article suffers from many the same problems in that it fails to note that the majority of the money involved is through government efforts to lower prices in developing countries.  As the IEA notes ending this support will shift "the burden of high prices from government budgets to individual consumers…" and that “…low-income households are likely to be disproportionately affected by the removal…”

We see a lot of false arguments about “subsidies” for the oil and natural gas industry, but this tweet caught us by surprise:

First, as we have to explain every time, the oil and gas industries don’t get tax credits (which reduce taxes dollar for dollar) or grants from the government. They get t... more »

Interesting analysis by The Barrel's John Kingston on last week's decision to release 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

Kingston writes that the 1 million barrels per day (b/d) to be released from the reserve over a 30-day period is approximately equal to government estimates of the daily yield from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) - if, in fact, the government ever permitted oil and natural gas development there. He asks:

"So the question is if foes of ANWR drilling like President Obama, Sen. Charles Schumer (Democrat-New York) and Rep. Edward Markey (Democrat-Massachusetts) think an SPR release of 1 million b/d is going to impact markets, which they made clear (last week), why have they consistently dismissed the potential market impact of fl... more »