By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE
Gas prices have continued to rise over the past two weeks, and now OPEC has announced a major decision that will likely drive those prices higher.
OPEC said Wednesday it will reduce oil production beginning in November by 2 million barrels per day. OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries largely based in the Mideast, said in a statement it made the decision “in light of the uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks, and the need to enhance the long-term guidance for the oil market, and in line with the successful approach of being proactive, and preemptive…”
President Joe Biden helped lower pricesby releasing one million barrels per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve since April, but the reserves – meant for emergency situations like natuural disasters or in the event of war – are now near decades-low levels.
“In any event, we will continue to take steps to protect American consumers,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during Tuesday’s press briefing. “Our focus, and it’s been very clear for the past several, several months, has been on taking every step to ensure markets are sufficiently supplied to meet demand for a growing global economy.”
Biden told reporters earlier this week he was “concerned” about OPEC’s announcement, calling it “unnecessary.”
According to AAA, the current national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.83, up from $3.77 a week ago. The recent rise in gas prices is due in part to the effects of Hurricane Ian. In Alaska, AAA says the average price of unleaded is $5.43 a gallon. In June, Fred Meyer on Dimond Blvd. in Anchorage was selling unleaded for $5.46, as shown in the photo above from June 17.
Patrick De Haan, a petroleum expert with Gas Buddy, said he expects OPEC’s decision to drive prices up 15 to 30 cents per gallon.
“Ouch… and up goes oil after OPEC recommendation…” he wrote on Twitter. “It’s VERY nuanced right now because of refinery kinks, but high [gas prices] will soon fall in the West Coast, Great Lakes and others where they exploded, while rising in the Gulf, South, [Southeast], East Coast and [Northeast] because of OPEC’s decision.”
Prices hit an all-time high in June, surpassing $5 per gallon before declining. Current prices, though, are still much higher than when Biden took office. The average price one year ago was $3.20 per gallon.
The Center Square provides news stories for Must Read Alaska.
The simple solution would be to open up our domestic markets again. But, under heavy influence by the Climate Change cult, we won’t. Our elected officials like Lisa Murkowski stay silent. It’s going to be a cold and expensive winter, be ready. I imagine people will be cutting down more trees and burning more wood,
2 years ago we were energy independent.
Amazing how the biden junta and their apologists has so quickly brought to ruin a once great nation.
Also keep in mind the depletion of the SOR. It’s not good all around.
Just wait 6 to 12 months from now as we are being savaged by a brutal stagflation recession (depression). Or as the lefty scum call it: a ‘correction’…
I also read that Biden is going to dip into our oil reserves some more. Doing all he can to get the price down before the election hoping that people have no mentality at all when they vote. Because they’re making their Winter blend now. It doesn’t contain a chemical that inhibits evaporation like summer gasoline does so that makes it cheaper to produce by about 40 cents a gallon. Russia isn’t doing biting any favors because of course he’s been arming folks they are fighting. This is just Russia’s way of fighting back economically. It doesn’t really matter to me one way or the other. I burn less than one tank of gas a month but I feel for those people who have to commute.
Gas prices hit all of us even if you don’t use gas. It’s going to cause even more inflation.
You are correct. People pay for the high price of gas every time they go to the grocery store because it cost more to get that lettuce in there. This is all that Biden can do by rating the oil reserves. He has to keep gas affordable, and the only way he can do that is to turn loose of some of it. No way in hell can he start more development, that’s pretty much written in stone as far as the Democrats are concerned. OPEC is in bed with Russia and is trying to get the cost up, I think mostly to make Biden look bad. They want him gone as do most people. You could think of it this way, you can do your part by accepting the higher gasoline prices and then vote your displeasure in November. Even though the next presidential election isn’t for two years, this is a unique opportunity for us to get the current president out of office after only two years. Id pay $10 a gallon for gasoline if that were to happen.
All the EVers think they have a leg up, at least until the coal power plants see a rise in coal costs. EVs depend on black soot for recharge. Environmentalist wackos need to be sent to re-reeducation camps. And not let out!
Well, I guess it’s good that the Biden crew announced that they will sell more of our strategic oil reserves, right? Does anyone believe that this admin is not deliberately destroying the USA?
Would you do anything different than the biden junta if you were?
There those (lots-many of them) that still cannot see his every action (other than when he inserts both feet in his mouth…) is controlled by the globalist cabal–the Davos crowd, etc. Even with a favorable election (like that matters anymore), we are going to hit the wall, and hit hard. Prepare…
These dumbass Demonrats are just going to have to come to terms with the fact that the U.S. has to moderate the oil market just like it does military alliances and everything else. There are just too many manipulative players (like them) out there. We’ve been dealing with the energy market plays during Demonrat administrations going back to Carter. It’s getting monotonous. We cannot repeatedly open and shut the domestic market like a spigot. We have to maintain the ability to produce quickly when OPEC plays these games.
Of course, if the Demonrats would stop their “renewable energy” games, maybe OPEC would behave more responsively, too……….
Wait until after the election. Woo boy. We’re in for it once the democrats have nothing left to lose.
I’m Counting on it.
It’s called scorched earth policy–and yes–that is in the playbook and will be used. They will NEVER release one single lever of power without exacting a severe penalty.
Murkowski voted to confirm Deb Haaland. A disaster.
and so did Young and Sullivan.
They would have thrown another dumb wacko activist at it that would have been maybe worse. But I have to admit it is a really bad president to allow someone to be in that position when there is evidence tying the person to eco terrorism.
Thank God no one in the White House is making mean tweets.
Elections have consequences. Boy are we paying them.
Maybe if someone could have exercised an ounce of self-control on his tweets, he would have been re-elected. And we wouldn’t have a senile old man as President, along with his Leftist buddies.
I stand with you on that one. By putting his big foot in his mouth, Trump screwed all of us.
Trump’s ego was the bait in the monkey trap.
Yeah biden was just so popular, the mean tweets took the incumbent out. Biden was able to secure the most votes ever, to become president!
O by the way, I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona. From my front porch, I can see the sea.
The major oil companies were losing money at $30 a barrel oil. The break even mark for American producers is around $50 a barrel. So ConocoPhillips is making record profits. Alaska, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana are seeing massive oil revenues flowing to State coffers. Massive oil revenues means Alaska’s government will be on a spending spree. The Permanent Fund will have more cash to buy into a cheap stock market. All sounds terrible to me. Seems like two years ago the State was faced with budget shortfalls. Now we are loaded with cash. No state income tax buys a lot of expensive gas at the pump. Need to read ConocoPhillips last 4 years 10 K ‘s.
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