President Biden To Tell Us After The Market Closes How Punishing Oil Companies Will Fix This Problem -- October 31, 2022

Later

Later, 4:56 p.m. ET: wow, was I wrong. Link here.

Later, 4:13 p.m. ET: I'm sure President Biden will note this in this 4:30 p.m. remarks:

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Original Post

I'm wondering how "punishing" the oil companies will fix this problem. Details at 4:30 p.m. ET today when President Biden releases his plan. 

Europe starting to run out of diesel. I guess that 25-day supply was an exaggeration. Link here.

So, I'm curious. Did anyone read the Forbes article. Probably not. 

There are four reasons for the diesel shortage this year. Two of them apply every year.

The third, relatively unimportant, unless one asks why they were unprofitable -- several unprofitable refineries closed over the past couple of years, so this third reason is also a bit overplayed.

The fourth and real reason:

But the primary reason is the cutoff of Russian imports. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. was importing nearly 700,000 barrels per day (BPD) of petroleum and petroleum products. Most of those imports were finished products and refinery inputs that boosted distillate supplies in the U.S. 

Let's fact-check, link check.

US imports by country of origin, goose eggs from Russia:

Russian imports:

And interestingly enough, most of those Russian imports are off-loaded in New England (needs to be fact-checked) and that's where the biggest shortage has occurred.

In addition, the fastest way to get petroleum products to destination is by pipeline, and New England activists hate pipelines; they appear to prefer diesel-burning trucks on the road. Probably reminds Bernie Sanders of his days in Russia.

And, of course, Joe Biden knows something about trucks -- he started out in life as a truck driver. Or so he says.