© Provided by James Hendrickson
Suppressed Production Keeps Gas Prices High
With supply low and demand high, gas prices are high and rising. However, it is not the market that drives the prices but investor demands, according to a survey of oil executives.
Rising Gas Prices
The price at the pump increased to record highs for three days in a row this week. The average price for a gallon of gas as of Friday stood at $4.43, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). In some western states, the cost near or tops $5 gallon.
There are 9,173 oil drilling permits issued to oil companies on over 24 million acres of federal land. Critics, including President Biden, say those permits should be used to increase production and bring down prices. However, industry officials contend that it would take six to 12 months for wells to begin producing. That’s what is keeping oil companies from using those permits?
Capital Discipline
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that most oil executives
blame investors who are responsible for tamping down drilling and keeping gas prices high.
“Slightly over half—59 percent—of executives believe investor pressure to maintain capital discipline is the primary reason that publicly traded oil producers are restraining growth despite high oil prices,” according to the bank’s Dallas Fed Energy Survey.
For decades, petroleum companies made money for their investors by drilling and producing more oil to meet growing demand. Capital discipline puts investor returns ahead of production. In other words, income is plowed back to investors in the form of dividends at the expense of increased drilling and production.
But Why?
The pandemic resulted in a sharp drop in demand for gasoline.
As a result, in April 2020 crude oil prices went negative for the first time in history.
That time is known as the 2020 oil bust. In addition, the fracking boom and bust of
a few years before was fresh in investors’ minds when 2020 crude prices crashed.
From 2014 to 2016, fracking dramatically increased oil production.
That resulted in a cataclysmic drop in prices. The price of a barrel of U. S.-produced oil
fell 70 percent from $100 to $30, according to the World Bank. Investors lost substantial sums in those two episodes. As a result, the call for capital discipline became the mantra of oil and gas investors.
What’s Ahead
Oil companies are increasing production, according to the Dallas Fed survey.
However, do not expect Big Oil to lead the charge. Median production by the largest oil producers rose six percent from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022.
Smaller, independent producers are projecting 15 percent growth. Most small firms are not publicly traded. Therefore, they are not pressured by investors to keep production down.
“In the world of money, everyone lives on bended knee,” Brian Thomas, a managing director at Prudential Private Capital, told a gathering of oil executives. “The industry
is beginning to kind of morph its behavior to reflect the concerns of its investor base,
right or wrong.”
With U. S. production down and OPEC unwilling to ramp up supply, gas prices are expected to remain high through at least the end of the year. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical advisor, says he “just can’t explain” a White House tweet
stating the COVID-19 vaccine wasn’t available when President Joe Biden took office.
If you think gas prices are bad, diesel is in its worst crisis since
the 1970s and has even raised fears of localized rationing (msn.com)
Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) © Alex Wong/Getty Images
Testifies during a hearing before the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies of House Appropriations Committee at Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill May 11, 2022, in Washington, DC. The subcommittee held a hearing to examine the FY 2023 budget request for the National Institutes of Health.
Fauci made the remarks Friday to CNN‘s Jake Tapper, who asked him about the since corrected tweet that seemed to falsely give credit to Biden for the vaccine’s development. The exchange comes as the Biden administration seeks to defend its record against withering criticism from political opponents.
During the segment, Tapper pointed to a Thursday tweet from the White House stating that “when President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available.” “But as you know, that’s not true,” said Tapper. “There was a vaccine available, it might not have been widely available, but it was available.”
Tapper said that CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale found that more than 3 million Americans had been fully vaccinated and more than 18 million had at least one shot as of Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021.
“Why is the White House politicizing the pandemic by tweeting out that there was no vaccine available until Joe Biden became president?” asked Tapper. “It’s not true.”
“So you’re talking to the wrong person,” deflected Fauci. “I wasn’t involved in the tweet.
I just can’t explain it. Sorry.”
Tapper responded by asking Fauci if he agreed it was important to have facts about the vaccine, “whether it’s from the Trump White House or the Biden White House,” and that the vaccine became available before Biden was sworn in.
Fauci agreed, adding,
“I think from a pure accuracy, that’s not a correct statement.”
By Friday afternoon, the White House had corrected the tweet.
“We previously misstated that vaccines were unavailable in January 2021. We should
have said that they were not widely available,” the White House said in a follow-up tweet. “Vaccines became available shortly before the President came into office. Since then, he’s been responsible for fully vaccinating over 200 million people.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on December 11, 2020. Developing a vaccine was a priority for
then-President Donald Trump.
The vaccine was initially only available to people particularly vulnerable to the virus because of a medical condition, their age or occupation. Currently, 66.4 percent of the
U.S. population, 220 million people, is fully vaccinated, according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Biden has seen sagging poll numbers going into the 2022 midterm elections amid
high inflation and gas prices. Seeking to stem possible losses, the president and his allies have played up his administration’s handling of the pandemic and how the U.S. has seen record-low unemployment numbers since he took office.
Related Articles
Bill Gates: ‘Tragic’ if conspiracies about me are keeping people from getting vaccinated (msn.com)
Coup to remove cancer-stricken Putin underway in Russia, Ukrainian intelligence chief says (msn.com)
Biden’s tax on unrealized gains will hit far more taxpayers than he claims (msn.com)
Biden Administration’s Muddled COVID Messaging Just Got More Confusing
Sean Hannity 5/13/22 | BREAKING FOX NEWS May 13, 2022 – YouTube
Fauci Says People Don’t Like His Integrity: ‘Alienated a Lot of People’
Chrislam 2022: The New Vatican in Dubai – Search (bing.com)
Who broke the Venezuelan oil Industry – Search (bing.com)
Bill Gates Jokes About Tracking People with Vaccines
Bill O’Reilly states: Joe Biden is the Third Most INCOMPETENT President | Inflation Crisis | Centerpoint – YouTube
James Buchanan Civil War
On April 12, 1861, a little over a month after Buchanan left office and retired to Wheatland. Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina and the Civil War began.
James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States (1857-1861), served immediately prior to the American Civil War.
Did Woodrow Wilson lead us into the Great Depression – Search (bing.com)
Woodrow Wilson After a policy of neutrality at the outbreak of World War I, Wilson led America into war in order to “make the world safe for democracy.” Like Roosevelt before him, Woodrow Wilson regarded himself as the personal representative of the people.
His first major priority was the Revenue Act of 1913, which lowered tariffs and began the modern income tax. Wilson also negotiated the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, which created the Federal Reserve System.
Did Franklin Pierce lead us into the Civil War – Search (bing.com)
After his death, Franklin Pierce mostly passed from the American consciousness,
except as one of a series of presidents whose disastrous tenures led to civil war. Pierce’s presidency is widely regarded as a failure; he is often described as one of the worst presidents in American history. The public placed him third-to-last among his peers.
President C-SPAN surveys (2000 and 2009). – Search (bing.com)
Who was President when WW2 began?
WW2 lasted for only six years, but saw two presidents overseeing the conflict.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president in 1933 and was the only president to serve more than two terms. WW2 began on September 1, 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland.
Two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany. During the first few years of the war, the United States stayed out of the conflict aside from providing military supplies to the Allied powers, which consisted of France, Great Britain, and later the Soviet Union and China. The United States officially entered the conflict after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Roosevelt declared war on Japan the day after.
When did Harry Truman take office?
Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, from a cerebral hemorrhage.
His vice president at the time, Harry Truman, was sworn in as president just two hours after hearing word of Roosevelt’s death. Truman served as president for the last few months of the war and oversaw huge decisions regarding ending the global conflict. Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki that led to the Japanese surrendering. In 1945, he also witnessed the signing of the charter of the United Nations.
I would put LBJ, Carter, Clinton and Obama as ties with Biden’s worthlessness in my Lifetime. Biden’s brain is in recession, and the brain cells he’s losing are devaluing at the same rate as the US dollar. (When Trump left office inflation was 1.4% and 16 months later 10%) ….
TRUMP Gas was $1.93 when he left office and increased to $3.76 before Putin invaded Ukraine…. Thanks to Brandon’s policies we have x2 gas and grocery prices, and a $3,500 drop in annual real wages. Trump was a billionaire business entrepreneur. Biden is just a backslapping DUMBASS’ bureaucrat. No comparison. Shame on those who promoted Biden’s candidacy for the last 50 years and those who voted for him in 2020.
My condolences to anyone like myself retiring this year.
40years of work just to have a crooked system swallow all our earnings.
My Ten Dis-Commandments:
1. Biden’s Tax On Unrealized Gains – Search (bing.com)
2. Biden’s 110 Page Communist Manifesto – Search (bing.com)
3. Biden’s Cesar Chavez Statue – Bing video
4. Biden’s Crime Family – Search (bing.com)
5. Obama Muslim Brotherhood – Search (bing.com)
6. Zionist Jews in our Govt. & Media – Bing images
7. Zionist Jews in the Catholic Faith – Search (bing.com)
8. Pelosi Crime Family / Pelosi Land Grant Scheme
9. Pelosi Connection with Jim Jones (Jonestown) – Search (bing.com)
10. Pelosi Connection with the 60’s Hippie Movement – Search (bing.com)
Pelosi was a Vietnam War Protestor? – Search (bing.com)
Nancy Pelosi at protests of Derek Chauvin? – YouTube
Rick Steves’ The Holy Land: Israelis and Palestinians
Don’t like abortions? Don’t get one (msn.com)