We didn’t stop needing oil the moment President Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20 — and Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to be laughing at it for a long while.
Reports came in that the United States imported more oil products from Russia in March, than in any other month in over a decade.
The 22,938 barrels of crude oil and petroleum imported are short of the 24,371 imported in August 2010. Only one month saw more imports from Russia than this: May 2009, with 25,083 barrels of crude oil and petroleum products.
“Crude oil imports from Russia in March stood at 6.1 million barrels, making Russia the third-largest oil exporter to the United States,” Just the News’ Bethany Blankley reported Friday.
“The spike in U.S. imports of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia began in 2002 and continued to climb in 2010. They dipped down in 2014 and rose significantly in 2020, according to an IEA analysis.”
This was not due to Joe Biden’s sudden election. This is a sign that America’s energy consumption patterns have changed with the end of the pandemic. This is also a sign that this will continue to happen in the future, especially since it is more difficult to drill and transport oil.
One of the first acts of the new administration was to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline project, which would have brought crude oil down from the oil sands of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Biden also ended drilling licenses in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, stopped new drilling on federal lands and promised to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030.
In a piece published by Fox Business on June 14, Phil Flynn, Price Future Group senior energy analyst, stated that Russia’s energy policies have allowed it to take more of the global energy market.
Flynn wrote that “exports of oil to the U.S. are at an all-time high, reaching almost 750,000 b/d in March, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) data, making Russia the number-three oil exporter to the U.S.
He stated that U.S. oil production had fallen by 1.715million barrels compared to a year ago. Russia is filling a large portion of this void.
This is a change from what we saw during the last administration.
“During Trump’s term, America was competing with Russia and Saudi Arabia to be the world’s dominant oil and gas producer, yet under Biden, we are retreating from that race in the name of climate change,” Flynn wrote.
“The problem is that the Biden administration’s carbon goals are unrealistic, and even the IEA admits that unless we stop investing in fossil fuels the carbon goals will not be met,” he said.
Flynn stated that while Biden may make lofty predictions regarding renewables but Flynn suggested that Putin is more realistic about the world’s energy requirements.
“We already know that Russia is not going to stop investing in oil and gas, because the demand for fossil fuels will soon spike to all-time highs and it will be decades before we start to see a meaningful demand decline,” he said.
“In the meantime, Russia will see a big economic boost as fossil fuel prices will undoubtedly rise as the U.S. falls back from the oil and gas production stage,” Flynn wrote.
Yet, Biden is too busy canceling pipelines at home and is unwilling to take action against Russia to build them in Europe.
The president said last month that he would not sanction the Russian-controlled Nord Stream2 pipeline companies because it was “counterproductive”.
BIDEN: "I have been opposed to Nord Stream 2 from the beginning but it's almost completed… Impose sanctions now would be counterproductive in terms of our European relations." pic.twitter.com/IhJKIW35iP
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 25, 2021
“I have been opposed to Nord Stream 2 from the beginning but it only has — it’s almost completed,” Biden said. “To go ahead and impose sanctions now would, I think, be counterproductive in terms of our European relations.”
The pipeline will send about 1.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas into Europe each year. Nord Stream 2 will also bypass Ukraine, depriving that country of gas transit fees.
It’s not only bad for European energy security but it also tries to stop Ukraine from receiving funding. Biden will not make any move against it, as that would be “counterproductive.”
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, said in a statement that Biden’s administration is “buttressing the Iranian and Russian industries” and has “tipped us into oil dependence on Russia just a year after complete independence” from them, according to Just the News.
Sgamma went on to call it “a geopolitical gift” to Moscow.
It’s a gift that’s going to keep on giving, sadly, particularly as the West becomes suicidally dependent on the Russian oil spigot.
