Strategic Petroleum Reserve sales

The letter from Mark Vincent, “Can you believe this?” (July 16) complained that the U.S. Department of Energy sold oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) to a Chinese oil company wholly owned by China. The implication was that the Biden administration chose to sell it to China. This is false.

The Department of Energy cannot choose the buyer. Any sales from the SPR must be sold to the highest bidder. It is sold at auction. Our government cannot determine the buyer, nor can it prevent any buyer from shipping the oil to any other nation. The oil can change hands multiple times from the point of sale. The Biden Administration has plans to replace the oil sold after prices drop.

The SPR was created as a response to the “Arab oil embargo” of 1973 and has, since that time, been expanded to include sales of oil to reduce the economic impact of petroleum shortages, such as has occurred due to Putin’s war in Ukraine.

The 1973 oil embargo was begun by OPEC nations (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), to punish the United States for our support of Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

Mark Finley, a man with 35 years of experience in the oil industry, is currently a Fellow with the Baker Institute for Public Policy (Rice University). He stated that “Whether it (oil) stays in the United States or goes somewhere else is less important than does it succeed in changing the global balance of supply and demand, because that’s what drives the price . . .”.

Mark Vincent’s source, the Institute for Energy Research (EIR), is a nonprofit organized by Charles Koch and Robert Bradley Jr. Koch is an ultraconservative billionaire and his nonprofit is anything but a dispassionate purveyor of facts. EIR reports read like political hit jobs and, as in this case, they leave out important details, such as the fact that federal law requires the oil to be sold to the highest bidder.

Stan Conger

Bishop