“Diesel and heating oil inventories in the US Northeast were getting worryingly low. Officials swung into action, organizing a series of calls between Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and several of the country’s biggest oil refiners to discuss strategies to boost stockpiles. The tone was cordial, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.”
“But the very next working day, the oil industry was blindsided. At a hastily arranged press conference on Oct. 31, President Joe Biden castigated Big Oil for handing “outrageous” profits to shareholders and executives rather than bringing down prices at the pump. Unless that changed, he warned, oil companies faced more taxes. “Their profits are a windfall of war — the windfall from the brutal conflict that’s ravaging Ukraine and hurting tens of millions of people around the globe,” he said.”
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Kevin Crowley, Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Ari Natter
Sat, November 5, 2022, 7:39 AM·8 min read
In this article:
Joe BidenPresident of the United States since 2021
Vladimir PutinPresident of Russia (1999–2008, 2012–present)
Jennifer GranholmAmerican politician
(Bloomberg) — As October drew to a close, the White House saw another potential energy flash point on the horizon.
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Diesel and heating oil inventories in the US Northeast were getting worryingly low. Officials swung into action, organizing a series of calls between Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and several of the country’s biggest oil refiners to discuss strategies to boost stockpiles. The tone was cordial, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.
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But the very next working day, the oil industry was blindsided. At a hastily arranged press conference on Oct. 31, President Joe Biden castigated Big Oil for handing “outrageous” profits to shareholders and executives rather than bringing down prices at the pump. Unless that changed, he warned, oil companies faced more taxes. “Their profits are a windfall of war — the windfall from the brutal conflict that’s ravaging Ukraine and hurting tens of millions of people around the globe,” he said.
It was just the kind of whiplash that has repeatedly sown mistrust and stoked tensions with the fossil fuel industry over the course of the Biden administration, according to multiple interviews with executives and lobbyists involved in oil and gas, who declined to be identified because the meetings and conversations they described were private.
Biden’s team has been at odds with the industry since the 2020 election campaign. But as global energy prices spiked this year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the White House called on Big Oil to help, only to grow increasingly frustrated that it’s holding back on production while reaping record earnings.
“Month after month, these companies have posted record profits that they’ve then used to pad shareholder pockets rather than boost production and lower gas prices,” said White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan. “Month after month, we’ve offered them every opportunity and incentive to change their behavior.”
While they were never under any illusions about the president’s green ambitions, oil industry insiders say they’ve become increasingly unhappy with a series of conflicting policy priorities — for example, moving within a matter of months from a halt on federal leasing for oil drilling to demanding more production — and unrealistic requests such as spending billions of dollars to rapidly add more refining capacity.”
Read it all here: https://news.yahoo.com/biden-feud-big-oil-ratchets-123000887.html
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