re Biden blames Russia for high gas prices

Kent WA

Description

Gas prices are going up all over the world, not just in the US. Oil is traded in an open market just like all other commodities. Demand for oil has outpaced production growth as economies slowly rebounded from the worst of the pandemic, leaving the market with a small buffer to mitigate an oil-supply shock. Russia is the world’s third-largest oil producer, the conflict in Ukraine leads to a substantial decrease in the flow of Russian barrels to market. A tight balance between SUPPLY AND DEMAND. The US was never really energy independent, just very close. "In 2021, the U.S. imported an average of 209,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and 500,000 bpd of other petroleum products from Russia. Although Russian crude accounts for only three percent of U.S. crude oil imports and about one percent of total crude oil processed by U.S. refineries—Russian crude oil imports are important to refineries on the West Coast and Gulf Coast." https://www.afpm.org/newsroom/blog/oil-and-petroleum-imports-russia-explained