It's absolutely remarkably stunning deception taking place in our country. There was an article posted today that in 2015 the US lifted the restrictions on exports of crude oil out the of the United States. That led me to google it to see what was up with that. After several weeks of wondering why Trump over saturated the US oil market when it was already oversaturated due to covid, I finally found my answer. I knew Trump continually conveyed we had abundant energy resources, abundant enough to make America oil independent. The one question that kept creeping into the back of my mind was why didn't the Saudi imports decease through out Trump's tenure outside of a couple of months slow down in 2020. It just wasn't adding up. If the object was to make us independent than we wouldn't need all that Saudi oil. I almost, because of that exact question lingering in the back of my mind, didn't do my first original post of The Last Barrel Standing. But none the less Trump lied to us about taking us out of the Paris Accord and that overrode any lingering questions in my mind.
Well I am now going to give you last piece of that lingering puzzle why and it's going to be absolutely stunning the deception(s) that took place. When congress lifted the law there was a provision called Saving Clauses where the president could go back to the licensure of crude oils in circumstances, one was if it was having a negative economic effect on the American economy:
In addition, Subsection (d) authorizes the President to impose
short-term crude oil export licenses (for no more than one year) if the President determines and declares
that a national emergency exists or the national interest requires such a limitation, or the Secretary of
Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, finds that the export of crude oil is having adverse economic consequences in the United States. These short-term export licenses may be renewed for an
additional one-year term
**
(d) Exceptions and presidential authority
(1) In general
The President may impose export licensing requirements or other restrictions on the export of crude oil from the United States for a period of not more than 1 year, if-
(A) the President declares a national emergency and formally notices the declaration of a national emergency in the Federal Register;
(B) the export licensing requirements or other restrictions on the export of crude oil from the United States under this subsection apply to 1 or more countries, persons, or organizations in the context of sanctions or trade restrictions imposed by the United States for reasons of national security by the Executive authority of the President or by Congress; or
(C) the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, finds and reports to the President that-
(i) the export of crude oil pursuant to this Act has caused sustained material oil supply shortages or sustained oil prices significantly above world market levels that are directly attributable to the export of crude oil produced in the United States; and
(ii) those supply shortages or price increases have caused or are likely to cause sustained material adverse employment effects in the United States.
Which means it reverts back to the old standard of how exports were handled if there is adverse effects on the American economy. Licenses would have to be applied for before exports of crude oil out of the country and only excess oil not being consumed by the US would be eligible. As long as Trump could keep importing Saudi oil he could sell our domestic oil and subsequently our natural gas that is produced from oil. During 2020 he should have been reducing imports to save taxpayer dollars not draining oil out of our national reserves for profit.
There are ways around exporting crude oil out of the US when shortages occur. One, as mentioned is requiring companies to get licenses to release for export. This is usually done under a perceived threat to national security or a threat to the global community such as the current stated Russia threat. Biden said the other day to reporters that easing of gas prices would be determined by the number of licenses. What he was saying in essence is the same thing the news organizations are using to explain why oil is being allowed to be shipped to China, India and Europe while there is a shortage here. It's under the guise that we don't have the refining capacity and releasing it will stabilize gas prices globally. Why I call that a guise is because if we already are producing beyond our capacity why would fracking be back on the rise here in the United States. That is because it's not about the oil as much as fracking produces natural gases and lighter crudes that can be converted to liquified natural gases. The latter is one of the reasons why we have a gasoline shortage here in the U.S. It's also the reason we have a jet fuel shortage. It's not because of increased demand of travel it's because the same light crude when stabilized converts to natural gas. The gasoline shortage here in the US is due to refinery issues, not enough refinery capacity, or so you are being told. What the issue is is that refineries has opted to use what is call stabilizers that take crude oils and convert them over for consumption of other petroleum based products, natural gas is one of those by products of being run through a stabilizer. Almost every US refinery here has a stabilizer terminal. Even outside of all that, any oil produced here with a API gravity of 40 degrees isn't held to the requirements of export laws. Now hold on here with me because this is going to get real interesting.
Right now you have a basic understanding that oil(s) can be converted to natural gas through varying processes. But we can't handle all the natural gas requirements globally due to the "climate transition" therefore the need to export oil to other countries. Other countries have spent the last decade expanding their ability to turn oil into natural gas and natural gas liquids. One such country is India who is transitioning, we've heard a lot about Europe but no one's notice India. In 2004 and 2005 India had two refineries, with 2 more under construction, two with expansion plans (the original two) and with eight more planned.
Petronet LNG limited, a joint venture of FAIL, ONGC, IOCL, Baht Petroleum (BPCL), GDF Suez, and the Asian development bank. Petronet owns of of two existing LNG terminal (Dahe) while a second one is owned is expected to start in 2010. The other LNG terminal is owned by two foreign companies, Shell & Total.
Other players, including power companies and banks are planning to enter the LNG scene through new LNG terminals, with eight more planned and two expansions. The object is to replace coal which was 87.1 percent of India's energy uses.
Now you know it's just not Europe transitioning to natural gas, it's also India transitioning so there's a huge demand on the market for liquified natural gas imports. We are being told we have a gasoline shortage due to a lack of capacity when in fact it's the demand for natural gas and oil refineries opting to produce natural gas than gasoline or jet fuels. Remember last heating season when they said some states the price for natural gas would spike? That's because there's a more lucrative foreign market demand. This goes against the Saving Clause because it has a negative effect on Americans and the American economy. Refineries not coming back online despite the demand due to unregulated refineries being built abroad by taxpayers monies who are paying for it. The increased economic cost to Americans and the loss of jobs due to refineries staying shuttered after shut downs due to covid.
Now here's some stuff that should rock your socks. Originally the natural gas was going to be coming from through a pipeline they were planning to build through Afghanistan. It was the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline from Iran, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India (TAPI) from Turkmenistan. Remember those rumors back in the Bush years that they really wanted Afghanistan because they wanted to build a oil pipeline? It wasn't oil, it was natural gas evidently. Than after years of not being able to stabilize Afghanistan they decided to finally dump the idea and get the gas from Qatar, shipping it via it's liquified version into the country.
Here is where some of those little pieces of stuff never really seemed to come together. Like the crazy idea of trying to run any pipeline in a joint venture with Iran. That may explain some of the over abundant butt kissing Obama was doing with Iran and the real reason they decided to dump on Afghanistan. A lot of these failures, including the ongoing for years debate of running a pipeline through the middle east to Europe were due to Bush riding in like a Texas cowboy thinking he could revamp the structure of the middle east for gain. They think they've got it all figured out as far as restructuring the energy agenda for Europe, they sign the Paris Accord, if Hillary had been elected it'd probably went down that way but Trump won and he wasn't having it, not that he was against the Paris accord per se, as I've often been mentioning, but because the US wasn't a big enough player in the transition plans. Or it's even highly possible they themselves couldn't work a better deal so they brought in someone to kick some balls, in more than one way but I'll stick to the energy plan part of it. You are going to be quite surprised how he sold out Americans with his lies that he took us out of the Paris Accord.
While we were being distracted by his great negotiation ability to work a deal with Qatar to build a pipeline through the three plus one, Israel, Cyrus, Greece plus the "great negotiator" he was making plans for the US to sell our energy to Europe. This was part of the reason he saturated the US market, to lead people to believe that we were energy independent, which he never proved because the oil never stopped flowing from Saudi Arabia. Independent enough that we could sell our natural gas and oil to Europe, and sell it he did. During his four year tenure Trump sold a total of 334,707,000 barrels of oil and sold 138,463,000 (equivalent of) barrels of natural gas. Here's the kicker....he sold it all to China. Yes you heard that right. ALL TO CHINA. Want to hear that again? ALL TO CHINA. Talk about Biden sleeping with the enemy. (perceived enemy) That doesn't even include the oil and gas he sold to India or other countries. China and India were the biggest recipients of US oil and natural gas under Trump.
Why China and India and not directly into Europe? Not enough refining capacity. It's wholly possible though I haven't looked into it yet, that they could be refining these products into natural gas liquids for the US for importation into Europe. The refineries being built in Africa that the US will be shipping oil there for refining have been set back because of covid. The Trump administration, as seen in my first article, The Last Barrel Standing, Part 1 showed the billions committed to Africa through development banks and private investors to build refineries there. It's also totally possible China and India are buying it and shipping it abroad themselves. Everyone's in a race to make liquified natural gas for Europe before the coming winter season. It's coming at a overwhelming price being paid by Americans and their counterparts.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the climate agenda. Worldwide refinery capacity is increasing while the US is deceasing. That's because places like China, India and Africa are less regulatory environments. This increases the stake of stakeholders. Trump, well he didn't even care how dirty the game even got. He was ready to bring back the magnificent coal industry, not to actually ship the coal to countries still burning it but to, wait for it, make natural gas out of. You can convert coal to natural gas. This was about making America great again, not Americans. This was about selling out our energy like they've sold out our manufacturing. The Qatar pipeline? A lie. They knew for years it was going to be a eight billion dollar boondoggle, it would have taken decades to make a return on it. Qatar doesn't even own all the drilling rights according to Turkey. They weren't sure how much natural gas was in the reserve. The real deal was to build a liquified natural gas facility in Qatar to ship natural gas to Norway. The great negotiated Boeing deal? A billion dollar loss taken for a unique moment in time as Boeing likes to describe it. Yeah to sell an image of a miraculous negotiator.
Biden? Where does he played into all of this? He's using the Trump blueprint. He has shipped 121,347,000 barrels of oil and 80,823,000 (equivalent of) barrels of natural gas to China since being in office. Right now there's a 214,360,000 barrels of oil difference between Biden and Trump, if Biden shipped the same amount before the end of his term he'd shipped 242,694,000 of oil under ranking Trump by 93,013,000 barrels of oil. On the other hand if he sold the same amount of natural gas he'd over rank Trump by 28,183,000 barrels (equivalent of). As long as they can keep creating crisis they can keep getting away with it, they can keep funding these crisis using taxpayer dollars and continue making you pay back what you already paid for so they can continue enriching their bottom lines.
