In case you were wondering just how much US policy is dominated by China – check this out – Resident “I was installed, like a toilet” Biden probably told Granholm to get instructions
From here:
“US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, whose catastrophic handling of US energy policy will be one of the most memorable and dire consequences of the Biden era, engaged in multiple conversations with the Chinese government's top energy official just days before the Biden administration announced it would tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to combat high gas prices in 2021, the same China whose Hunter Biden-linked energy giant Unipec, which we previously learned had bought millions of barrels from the SPR release.
Granholm called China National Energy Administration Chairman Zhang Jianhua, a longstanding senior member of the Chinese Communist Party, for a half-hour one-on-one conversation on Nov. 21, 2021. Granholm’s calendar also shows an earlier phone call had been scheduled with Jianhua for Nov. 19 but a rep for the former Michigan governor said the first call never took place. Then, on Nov. 23, 2021, the White House announced a release of 50 million barrels of oil from the SPR, the largest release of its kind in U.S. history at the time.”
China consumes around 15-16 million bpd so in the overall scheme of things the sales were probably not especially noteworthy,
Checking some headlines, there is this from 2017
“PetroChina International, the overseas trading arm of state-owned oil giant PetroChina, bought 550,000 barrels from the SPR in the US Department of Energy's latest sale for a total of $28.8 million ($52.36/b).”
And some context from July 2022 here:
Trump Blasts Biden for Selling Oil to China, but Did the Same in 2017 (businessinsider.com)
“On July 11, the Biden administration announced that it had sold 950,000 barrels to Unipec, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned oil and gas enterprise Sinopec. It was part of a broader strategy that uses US reserves to counter a global crude oil shortage stemming from the Ukraine war's economic fallout, the Department of Energy said.”
That’s the thing about oil, it is (relatively) fungible - provided you have the relevant refinery capability. Russia is by far a larger supplier to China – I haven’t seen any comment about supplies of oil to China from the Middle East, Mexico, Venezuela and Canada.
Of more interest (and obviously “black listed” information) is the supply of oil to the US from Russia, Venezuela, Mexico via the Middle East and China as “middle men” – presumably Canada is actively enforcing sanctions against Russia.
Out of interest, here is the state of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the last ten years.
US Crude Oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Stocks (ycharts.com)
“US Crude Oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Stocks (I:USCOSPRE)
346.76M bbl for Wk of Jul 28 2023”
From here:
How much oil do Americans use per day? – Sage-Answer
“EIA uses product supplied to represent U.S. petroleum consumption. In 2020, the United States consumed an average of about 18.19 million barrels of petroleum per day..”
2020 was a bog C19 lockdown year, so US consumption is going to be over 20 million bpd.
Better hope that a “strategic” reason lasting more than 17-20 days doesn’t emerge! Mind you, I am sure that the sun will be shining and the wind blowing even more strongly during a crisis, right?
Onwards
Please upgrade to paid, or donate a coffee (I drink a lot of coffee) - “God Bless You!” if you can’t or don’t want to contribute. Coffee donations here: https://ko-fi.com/peterhalligan Buying just one Ko-Fi a week for $3 is 50 bucks more than an annual $100 subscription!
Once again, thanks for an insightful and useful article. Your research and reporting is some of the best anywhere. Impressive range of topics, too!