Why Biden’s release of US oil reserves won’t end pain at the pump
Al JazeeraGas prices will keep rising amid Russian war in Ukraine as sanctions tighten and demand outstrips supply, experts say. Washington, DC – When Joe Biden announced that the United States would release more than 180 million barrels of oil from its strategic petroleum reserve over the next six months, the US president hailed it as an historic move that would lower fuel prices in the US. “The Biden administration, by now, realises that as long as we have a Russia problem, oil prices are going higher,” said Robert McNally, president of the Washington-based consultancy Rapidan Energy Group. It’s going to keep oil prices and therefore pump prices high and heading higher,” said McNally, a former energy adviser to President George W Bush. “It’s just basic, but brutal, oil-market math and political survival.” Global supplies Russia is the world’s third largest oil producer, exporting 5 million barrels of crude a day, or about 12 percent of the global market, according to the International Energy Agency.