NYC Billionaire Catsimatidis Warns of Looming East Coast Diesel Rationing

(Bloomberg) — The diesel crisis in the US may get worse this summer with the potential of shortages and rationing on the East Coast, said billionaire refinery and fuel station owner John Catsimatidis.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see diesel being rationed on the East Coast this summer,” Catsimatidis, CEO of United Refining Co., said in a phone interview. “Right now inventories are low and we may see a shortage in coming months.”

East Coast stockpiles of the fuel have fallen to the lowest in data going back to 1990. National inventories stand at the lowest in 17 years as the US has become the world’s diesel supplier of choice. Fuel markets have been in disarray since growing bans against Russian products restricted one of Europe’s main suppliers of energy. With exports draining US tanks, the East Coast is feeling the pinch most acutely due to a lack of sufficient fuelmaking capacity there.

Consumers are already feeling the squeeze. Diesel prices have risen for the past 16 straight days and hit a new record of $5.553 a gallon Tuesday, according to the American Automobile Association. Gasoline prices rose to a new record of $4.404 a gallon.

Fuel supplies are tight across the country after refineries mothballed plants during the pandemic when fuel demand was decimated by stay-at-home orders. The East Coast suffered a particular blow after Philadelphia Energy Solutions permanently closed its refinery, which supplied the entire East Coast, in 2019 following an explosion.

Companies are already working around the tight diesel market in order to keep trucks on the road. Pilot Flying J Inc., which operates a chain of truck stops, adopted a contingency plan to keep certain East Coast markets fully supplied, according to Brad Jenkins, senior vice president of supply and distribution. The company is “taking additional actions to secure extra supply and mobilize our fleet to deliver diesel to areas facing tight availability, such as Virginia and Georgia,” he said.

The East Coast is now going into a diesel shortage. That means even MORE cost for trucking. Guess who ultimately pays it?

Fuel rationing, baby formula shortages, Ministry of Truth... Everything is going just swimmingly for the Biden Administration. it's no accident that so many Democrat congressman have decided this is a god year to announce their retirement.

Onward and upward,
airforce

All of them should retire, dems and publicons.

No argument there. And if they don't retire voluntarily, we should help them along.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Biden pulls 3 offshore oil lease sales, curbing new drilling this year

With the nationwide offshore drilling program expiring at the end of June, oil companies and climate activists face uncertainty over the future of leasing


By Anna Phillips


The Interior Department confirmed Wednesday that it will not hold three oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska that had been scheduled to take place, taking millions of acres off the auction block.
10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint

The decision, which comes as U.S. gas prices have reached record highs, effectively ends the possibility of the federal government holding a lease sale in coastal waters this year. The Biden administration is poised to let the nationwide offshore drilling program expire next month without a new plan in place.

While President Biden has spoken in recent weeks about the need to supply oil and gas to Europe so those nations can stop importing energy from Russia in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the move would mark a victory for climate activists intent on curbing U.S. fossil fuel leasing.

Barring unexpected action, the current five-year offshore drilling program will lapse at the end of June. Interior cannot hold any new oil and gas lease sales until it has completed a replacement plan. But though the federal government is legally obligated to prepare one, the administration has not released its proposal, nor have officials said when it might be coming.

The program’s looming expiration means the government doesn’t have enough time left to hold the three remaining oil and gas lease sales scheduled under the current plan. Interior spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz cited a lack of interest from oil companies, as well as legal obstacles and a time crunch, as reasons for nixing the planned auctions.

In an email Wednesday evening, Schwartz said the department “will not move forward” with a roughly 1 million-acre sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet “due to lack of industry interest in leasing in the area.”

She added that the department will not hold “lease sales 259 and 261 in the Gulf of Mexico region as a result of delays due to factors including conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales.”

Environmentalists praised the move, but the oil and gas industry and Republicans voiced dismay. Offshore drillers have sought to raise the alarm for months about the leasing program’s June 30 expiration date, saying that a lapse in the program would cost thousands of jobs and billions in lost tax revenue.

Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents offshore energy companies, said in an interview Thursday that the expiration of the offshore leasing program will chill investment in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Over the past few years, there have been several announcements of new projects coming online, so it’s very positive," he said. “However, we’re not going to be able to continue with that trend if we can’t get new leases.”

Biden officials have said they are working on a proposal for a new offshore program and describe the industry’s concerns as overblown. According to Interior’s figures, more than three-quarters of the offshore federal waters already under lease remain unused — that’s about 8 million acres where companies could drill new wells but have not.

Because most oil-and-gas production takes place on private and state-owned land, experts have said there’s little evidence the administration’s leasing approach will affect prices in the months ahead. Even if Interior held the three planned offshore lease sales, it typically takes years for companies to drill new wells and ramp up production.

Still, Republican lawmakers have seized on the issue as a way to direct Americans’ frustration over rising prices at the White House.

Rep. Bruce Westerman (Ark.), the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee, called the administration’s decision a sign of its “blatant disregard” for Americans struggling with inflation.

“I can’t imagine a more tone-deaf, shortsighted decision that jeopardizes our economic and energy security without doing a single thing to help the environment or the American people," he said in a statement.

Replacing the current plan won’t happen overnight. The timeline spelled out in regulations governing the program requires a three-step process involving environmental analysis, public comment periods and a review by the president and Congress.

It typically takes the government at least six months to a year to finalize a new offshore drilling plan. This means that even if the Interior Department unveils a new proposal in the coming weeks, the soonest energy companies will learn whether they will have access to new leases, and where, is probably early 2023.

Amid rising oil prices, inflationary pressure and the upcoming midterm elections, there is much uncertainty over how far the administration is willing to go on offshore drilling.

As a candidate, Biden promised to making tackling climate change a priority. He temporarily halted new oil and gas leasing on federal land and waters a week after taking office. But after a Louisiana judge struck down the moratorium last summer, administration officials said they were legally obligated to continue leasing.

Since then, the political pressure to expand drilling on federal land and waters has increased. Oil and gas industry lobbyists and Republican lawmakers have tried to blame high gas prices on the president’s climate policies. For his part, Biden has shifted from talk of banning new drilling to proposing a new policy that would push oil companies to drill on unused leases.

In the midst of internal wrangling and a broader political divide over the future of oil and gas leasing, the administration has delayed making a decision about whether to continue selling new offshore leases and, if so, how much of the nation’s coastal waters should be up for auction.

Conservationists have argued that the environmental risks posed by offshore drilling outweigh the benefits of future leases. Offshore oil and gas production accounts for a relatively small percentage of the nation’s overall supply, they argue, and the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf crippled the seafood industry, hurt tourism and depleted tax revenue in southeastern states.

“Big Oil is using anything they can find to try to extend the life of a dying fossil fuel industry. They are lying when they say they need more leases,” said Diane Hoskins, a campaign director with the environmental group Oceana. “We cannot drill our way out of high gas prices, and it would take years or decades for any new leases to begin producing.”

Of the 11 lease sales planned under the current program, seven have been held successfully. Interior held one more in November, auctioning off 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico in the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in the nation’s history. Only a fraction of those leases sold, and a federal judge later threw them out, citing a flawed environmental analysis completed during the Trump administration.

Got Gas?

Nation’s Emergency Heating Oil Stockpile May Be Drained as Biden Desperately Tries to Control Fuel Situation

May 23, 2022 Mark Wolf

President Joe Biden is mulling taking action to release federal diesel stockpiles in an attempt to curb the worsening supply shortage of the key fuel in New England, CNN reported Monday.

Biden recently asked officials to begin preparing a plan to order a release of fuel from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve — a government stockpile of ultra-low sulfur diesel last tapped in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy — a senior administration official told CNN. The move reportedly reflected the president’s and White House officials’ concerns about surging diesel fuel prices and declining private sector inventories in the northeast.

“The system is definitely under strain,” the senior administration official told CNN.

“We think this looks like the exact circumstance where consideration of the release should be done, and that’s what the president has directed.”

The average price of diesel fuel — which is vital for transportation, construction and agriculture — skyrocketed to an all-time high of $5.58 a gallon on Wednesday, according to AAA data. Diesel prices have been particularly high in New England where prices reached $6.43 a gallon last week, exceeded only by prices recorded in California.

Prices have surged largely due to declining East Coast diesel inventories, which dipped to 21.3 million barrels in early May — the lowest level ever recorded. The region consumes roughly 1.53 million barrels of ultra-low-sulfur diesel per day, meaning current inventory levels translate to about 13 days of supply.

The entire NEHHOR contains slightly more than a million barrels of ultra-low-sulfur diesel, or about 65 percent of East Coast daily demand.

“It’s small potatoes. It might buy a couple of weeks or even months, but it doesn’t solve the underlying issues,” Lipow Oil Associates President Andy Lipow told CNN. “It’s a band-aid — one that isn’t going to last very long, and when it comes off, the injury is not healing.”

Will Biden release the federal diesel stockpiles?

Biden’s historic releases from the much larger Strategic Petroleum Reserve have had a minimal effect on oil and gasoline prices. Gasoline prices have hit multiple records highs, and oil prices have remained elevated in the aftermath of Biden’s 180 million barrel release from the reserves in late March.

The recent SPR releases have also led to a dwindling of national oil stockpiles. SPR stocks fell to about 538 million barrels on May 13, the lowest level since 1987, according to the latest government data.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation.

RUNNING ON EMPTY: America’s diesel stockpiles are rapidly dwindling, fuel rationing on the horizon

May 13, 2022 | BPR Wire |


Thomas Catenacci, DCNF

American diesel stockpiles have been depleted while prices have surged to record highs, leading to higher prices for consumers.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see diesel being rationed on the East Coast this summer,” John Catsimatidis, the CEO of United Refining Co., told Bloomberg on Wednesday. “Right now inventories are low and we may see a shortage in coming months.”
“What we’ve seen this year has been the capabilities to turn oil into diesel and gasoline and jet fuel have diminished,” Jacques Rousseau, a managing director at Clearview Energy Partners, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.

The U.S. stockpile of diesel fuel, which is vital for the transportation sector and economy at large, hit a nearly two-decade low as fuel prices hit a record high Wednesday.

The nationwide stockpile of distillate fuel oil — a category that includes diesel and fuel oil — declined to about 104 million barrels, the lowest level since May 2005, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Wednesday. East Coast inventories declined to 21.3 million barrels of diesel fuel or about two weeks worth of supply, the lowest level since data was first recorded in 1990.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see diesel being rationed on the East Coast this summer,” John Catsimatidis, the CEO of United Refining Co., told Bloomberg on Wednesday. “Right now inventories are low and we may see a shortage in coming months.”

The average cost of diesel fuel in the U.S., meanwhile, surpassed $5.55 a gallon Wednesday, the highest level ever recorded, AAA data showed.

Diesel, which has been characterized as the “lifeblood of the global economy,” is vital for the construction, mining and agriculture sectors. The transportation industry alone consumed 122 million gallons of diesel in 2020.

“What we’ve seen this year has been the capabilities to turn oil into diesel and gasoline and jet fuel have diminished,” Jacques Rousseau, a managing director at Clearview Energy Partners, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.

Rousseau added that diesel fuel inventory levels and production have plummeted due to a decrease in refinery capacity nationwide. Several refineries, which process crude oil and turn it into diesel, have closed in recent years largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic-induced recession in 2020, he said.

Seven refineries, which processed a total of about 806,000 barrels of oil per day, have shut down over the last three years, leaving the U.S. with 124 operating refineries, down more than 10% since 2016, according to the EIA. Total U.S. operating refinery capacity fell 4.5% between 2020-2021 to 17.7 million barrels per day, its lowest level since 2013.

Meanwhile, bans on Russian fuels in the U.S. and Europe amid the Ukraine crisis has put even more pressure on the American energy industry which has sought to fill the gaps in the global supply chain. Although the U.S. is a net exporter of distillate fuel oil, it imported 77,000 barrels of the product from Russia in February.

“A lot of countries won’t accept Russian fuels anymore. So, that has caused a need for more diesel around the world and the U.S. is a major exporter of refined products. So U.S. diesel exports are up,” Rousseau told TheDCNF. “So, you have less capabilities, you got more exports and so what that’s doing is it’s drawing down the inventory levels in the U.S.”

Increased fuel prices and the decline of diesel inventory levels have already led to higher consumer costs, he added.

The two largest American transportation and freight companies — UPS and Union Pacific — have upped their individual fuel surcharges to account for the market instability. Union Pacific, which transports freight via rail, hiked its surcharge to a whopping 39% this month.

In addition, the U.S. food sector has also been impacted by the higher fuel prices. Higher diesel prices are “certainly going to translate into more expensive goods,” Patrick De Haan, an analyst at the research firm GasBuddy, told CNBC.

Tyson Foods, one of the largest U.S. food producers, noted that ” inflationary pressures across the supply chain” have led to higher costs in its earnings report Monday. Food prices increased 9.4% between May 2021 and April, the largest jump since 1981, according to the Department of Labor.

U.S. Oil Reserves Rapidly Declining

The U.S. is on the verge of a resource crisis, forcing the White House to actively take action to stabilize the oil market. Crazy gasoline prices in the U.S. have made the American public extremely angry, and large companies are losing huge amounts of money due to unpredictable spikes in the oil market.

The U.S. is experiencing a huge oil shortage. The last time such a shortage was observed back in 1987 and 2001. Currently, the U.S. has 532 million barrels of strategic oil reserves. Every week the number of million barrels is decreasing by 5.3 million. At best the U.S. oil reserves have two years left. But from February 25 to May 20, reserves fell by another 50 million as the manufacturing sector intensified. However, these are government resources. In addition, some of the oil is in the hands of the private sector, and their resources are sufficient for 8 years. The problem is exacerbated by the low rate of oil production in the US. The U.S. produces 11.9 million barrels of crude oil a day, with an average increase of 25,000 barrels a month. The U.S. has imposed an embargo on oil supplies from Russia, which has deprived Americans of about 500,000-600,000 barrels a day or about 15-18 million barrels of oil a month.

On May 23 the U.S. retail price of a gallon of gasoline set a new all-time record of $4.60 per gallon, or $1.20 per gallon. That’s the national average. In California, for example, a gallon costs $6.07, or $1.60 per gallon of gasoline. Prices dropped slightly when the US begun to empty its strategic reserves. A barrel of oil in the U.S. currently costs about $114.

The U.S. has long tried to implement a plan to redirect oil supplies from Saudi Arabia. Washington has attempted several times to persuade the Saudis to increase oil supplies to the international market so as not to create a deficit since the U.S. imposed an oil embargo on Russia. So far, the U.S. requests have been ignored by the Saudis. Increasing oil production would have meant Saudi Arabia breaking the OPEC+ agreement, which is more important to Riyadh than ties with America for that matter. It got to the point where the U.S. sent a delegation to negotiate with Saudi Arabia. White House Middle East Policy Coordinator Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, senior adviser for global energy security at the State Department, flew to Arabia. The meeting took place on May 24. The U.S. had hoped that increased oil production in Arabia would help expand the oil sanctions package for Russia and reduce the price of fuel in the U.S., as it has risen too much recently. The Arabian side responded that the oil embargo against Russia would anyway lead to a shortage of oil on the world market and that an increase in oil production in Arabia itself would not solve this problem. In this case, the U.S. will be able to use the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act NOPEC, which allows filing lawsuits against OPEC member countries. The essence of the lawsuit is a violation of antitrust laws. In practice, such a trick is quite difficult to implement, because the lawsuit will lead to a freezing of foreign reserves of Saudi Arabia in the U.S., and this can provoke a complete refusal of oil supplies from Saudi Arabia, and then the oil market would collapse.

The U.S. is considering the pressure on Venezuela and Iran as alternatives and attempts to “squeeze” more oil out of these countries by various means. For example, Washington has already lifted several sanctions against Venezuela. The situation with Iran is more complicated because there are fewer points of contact. In the long term, Iranian oil could replace the Russian onr, especially since it is cleaner than Russian oil. It is also possible that this scenario, which was not possible a few years ago, may take place. Russian oil could enter the market under the guise of Iranian oil.

Whether the U.S. succeeds in exerting pressure on oil-exporting countries through soft power or harsh measures, the future will show. If it succeeds, everything will remain as it is; if it fails, the State Department will have to lift sanctions against Russia at least linked to oil. The only question is whether Russia will want to restore supplies, because as Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said, Russia needs to rely only on its strength, and it will consider whether to resume a dialogue with the West in general. It is not ruled out that Russian oil will flow to the U.S. through third countries, as was previously the case with Venezuela.

The Worst Energy Crisis In U.S. History Is Going To Get Even Worse In The Months Ahead

May 29, 2022 by Michael


Are you ready for what is coming next? Are you ready to pay six dollars for a gallon of gasoline? Are you ready to pay much higher prices for everything at our major stores as the price of diesel goes haywire? Are you ready for widespread blackouts all over the U.S. this summer? Unfortunately, we are being warned that all of these things are coming. The worst energy crisis in U.S. history is poised to get even worse in the months ahead, and there is no “silver bullet” on the horizon which is going to magically solve our problems. The refineries that we need are not being built and the drilling that needs to be done is not really happening. Of course energy supplies are getting tighter and tighter all over the globe, and things will go to an entirely new level once the next major war starts.

Needless to say, things are bad enough already. On Sunday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States set a brand new all-time record high of $4.61 a gallon…

Gas prices in the US soared to record heights again Sunday, reaching an all-time high of $4.61 per gallon.

The number is more than 50 percent higher than the cost of a gallon a year ago. It comes as gas prices have continued to climb during Joe Biden’s presidency, and as millions of Americans are poised to travel by road for Memorial Day weekend.

A 50 percent increase in just one year.

Just think about that.

To my knowledge, we have never seen anything like this before.

If you can believe it, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 25 cents over the past six weeks.

That is crazy, but we are being warned to expect significantly higher prices “by the end of the summer”…

Experts say that number will likely surpass the $6 mark by the end of the summer – as pump costs in West Coast cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco already meeting that mark earlier this month.

I still remember when I could get 20 gallons of gas for 20 dollars.

Soon, 20 gallons of gas will cost all of us 120 dollars.

Who can afford that?

The price of diesel has been increasing at an even faster pace.

In fact, it has risen a staggering 75 percent since last Memorial Day…

Diesel prices are up as well – by a whopping 75 percent from Memorial Day last year – at around $5.50 a gallon, also an all-time record.

The rising cost of the fuel – commonly used by truckers for their rigs – has further hampered America’s embattled economy, driving up prices of good being transported cross-country by truckers, who are now electing for shorter routes due to the ‘unprecedented’ increase.

‘I can pretty much count on setting on fire $5-$700 a day…minimum,’ 22-wheel driver Eric Jammer told NPR Saturday of the rise in diesel costs seen over the past 12 months.

The trucks and trains that bring our goods to the stores run on diesel.

Diesel is only going to get more expensive from here, and America’s companies are going to pass those costs along to the consumers.

Yes, that will be quite painful.

Thanks to the soaring cost of fuel, airline fares are also shooting up dramatically…

Domestic airline fares for summer are averaging more than $400 for a round trip, 24 percent percent higher than this time in 2019, before the pandemic, and a full 45 percent higher than a year ago, according to travel-data firm Hopper.

One survey that was conducted just a few days ago found that approximately a third of all Americans say that their travel plans for Memorial Day were affected by high energy prices.

Joe Biden promised to do all that he could to drive down gasoline prices, and in order to try to keep that promise he foolishly took enormous amounts of fuel out of our strategic reserve.

Obviously that didn’t work, and now we are being told that Biden is running out of options…

President Joe Biden has vowed to do everything in his power to fight record-setting gasoline and diesel prices, but he’s up against a stark reality: There are few options for taming the surge.

While Biden has unleashed an unprecedented amount of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, other tools at the administration’s disposal would come at the expense of environmental protection and have little effect on fuel costs stoked by strained crude supplies and a global shortage of refining capacity. And the one sure-fire fix — for Americans to stop driving so much — is largely outside his control.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, Joe Biden is not going to save us from this crisis.

In the short-term, nobody is going to save us from this crisis.

We need more refineries, we need more drilling, and ultimately we are going to need some major technological breakthroughs because the way that we are currently doing things is not even close to sustainable.

On top of everything else, our rapidly aging power grids were never designed to handle so much demand. According to CBS News, we could potentially be facing widespread outages during the summer of 2022…

In its annual summer assessment released this week, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation noted that the Upper Midwest is facing a capacity shortfall leading to a “high risk of energy emergencies.” The entire Western U.S. also could face a power outage emergency in the event of spikes in energy use.

“We’ve been doing this for close to 30 years. This is probably one of the grimmest pictures we’ve painted in a while,” John Moura, NERC’s director of reliability assessment and performance analysis, told CBS MoneyWatch.

What will you do if the power in your area goes out for an extended period of time?

We all know that California has been experiencing problems for years, but in 2022 we are being told that the middle of the nation is actually at greatest risk…

In a large swath of the grid stretching from Illinois to Minnesota, the summer’s power demands are projected to exceed the grid’s capacity. That’s because this area of the grid — known as the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO — has lost about 2% of its generation capacity since last year as plants have retired; a key transmission line is also down for maintenance.

Perhaps you think that my headline is a little too dramatic.

Perhaps you do not yet believe that we are facing the worst energy crisis in U.S. history.

If that is the case, give it a few months.

By the end of the summer, I think that everyone will understand that we truly have entered a nightmare with no end in sight.

Watch the sorry vote rigging election stealing Demorats try to use this as an excuse for mail in ballots in November if nuclear war with Russia and the Chi-Coms hasn't started by then.

Gas Prices Soar to Record High on Memorial Day

Wendell Husebø30 May 2022

Gas prices on Memorial Day soared to a record high of $4.619 per gallon, up nine cents over the weekend, according to AAA.

Last year, gas prices were averaging around $3 per gallon, and in May of 2020, gas prices were around $1.77 cents.

Despite high gas prices that have been fueled by President Joe Biden’s war on energy, AAA estimates 34.9 million citizens will travel by a gas-powered vehicle this holiday weekend. An increase of only 4.6 percent from last year.

Yet the New York Times on Friday slammed American drivers for over-consuming gasoline. “Motorists have not done much to burn a lot less gasoline,” the Times wrote in an article entitled, “Gas Prices Hit New Highs as Summer Driving Season Starts.”

While the Times blamed Americans for high gas prices, it ignored Biden’s war on American energy. Breitbart News reported how Biden has caused energy prices to spike:

Biden has waged war on both public and private financing of oil drilling while subsidizing green-new-deal-like energy plans. As a result, American oil production is down from 2019, the year before the pandemic. Hard numbers suggest 2022 oil production is 12 million barrels per day, or eight percent less than in 2019.

Biden has made it increasingly more difficult for oil companies to gain financing to drill on private lands. He has also halted new drilling on public lands and terminated the Keystone Pipeline project that would have transported vast amounts of oil to American refineries.

Democrats have refused responsibility for the soaring gas prices, which have fueled inflation. What was once dubbed “transitory inflation” became “Putin’s price hike.” Before that reframing, CNN said inflation was “good,” while the Washington Post suggested inflation as the result of “corporate greed.”

Gas Now More Than $5/Gallon in NINE States (And Rising)

By Steve Watson | INFOWARS.COM Monday, June 06, 2022

The average price of a gallon of gas has surpassed $5 in nine states, seven of which are run by Democrats, with the national average price soaring this weekend to $4.85, according to the the American Automobile Association (AAA).

Motorists in 9 states – Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Washington – are now paying more than $5 a gallon.

While Alaska and Arizona are Republican run, the other seven states all have Democrat governors, and one mayor:

California, Gov. Gavin Newsom;
Oregon, Gov. Janet Brown;
Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee;
Hawaii, Gov. David Ige;
Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer;
Nevada, Gov. Steve Sisolak
Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker
District of Columbia, Mayor Muriel Bowser

Michigan has seen average gas prices rise by nearly 10 percent in just one week, according to the data.

In California, one Chevron station was charging $9.60 a gallon for regular last week.

Now that you're intellectually ahead, stay physically ahead by visiting our store.

Several more states are expected to breach the $5 threshold imminently, including Indiana, Pennsylvania, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York And New Jersey.

A month ago, the average cost of a gallon of gas across the U.S. was $4.25. A year ago, it was $3.05.

As we noted earlier, an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found only 37% approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, and even fewer approve of his handling of inflation (28%) and gas prices (27%).

Meanwhile, Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who seems more interested in ‘racist highways’, complaining about too many white pilots, and the abortion debate, claims that it isn’t fair to blame Joe Biden for higher gas prices despite his previous admission that unaffordable gas prices in the U.S. are part of a deliberate “incredible transition” to green energy.

Explosion at key gas export plant in the US rocks global energy markets

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mar...mp;cvid=fffea160e2c4486f8bd1c531c6433d23

I'll bet some of Biden's minions who want to see economic collapse so they can cancel the November elections set it off. Like all the food production and processing plants that have burned down.

"Dozens of food processing plants and warehouses have been destroyed by fires, plane crashes, and other curious accidents in recent weeks, representing a disturbing trend that falls outside the realm of coincidence."
https://www.infowars.com/posts/food...royed-in-fires-accidents-in-recent-weeks

Absolutely. This isn't all by coincidence.

If someone tells you "it's just a coincidence," it's not.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Get ready for a catastrophic diesel exhaust fuel (DEF) shortage.



And here's the bottom line:

"Unless the nation's truckers can refill with Diesel Exhaust Fluid, the trucks will stop. Literally. DEF production is about to crater and the country's largest truck-fueling company, Flying J, has been directed by Union Pacific railroad to decrease its DEF-receiving shipments by 50 percent or be 100 percent embargoed. Unless resolved, this demand may cause countless thousands of 18-wheelers to be force-parked very soon, perhaps starting this month....

Union Pacific's largest two shareholders are Vanguard and BlackRock. Vanguard's largest shareholder is BlackRock. BlackRock's key figure for strategy and policy is Tom Donilon, President Obama’s former National Security Advisor. Donilon's wife, daughter, and brother work at the Biden White House.

There is no wand to be waved to make the DEF shortage simply disappear. But doing nothing is both reprehensible and indefensible. There is no one better positioned to bring this looming catastrophe to the front burner than two men and two women named Donilon. Yet nothing is exactly what is being done. Why? Well, draw your own conclusions:"



Read the whole thing at the link.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Yeah, why is DEF in "short" supply. Someone needs to be coming up with answers. Time to refurb some old rigs and put them back on the road.

Most of the old trucks have run over 1 million miles, wore out, and were scrapped but the all of the new deisel 18 wheeler trucks can easily be made to run without DEF. Screw the EPA's air polution laws they need to be repealed. Diesel Exhaust Fluid does not make a deisel engine run it just reduces emission but most of the politians don't know that. We all need to contact them and let them know it.

Dad used to drive a rig with over 3 million on it. It isn't the miles, it's the maintenance that counts.

Not only trucking industry, but EVERY industry will be turned upside down. Farming, logging, mining, fishing… are all heavy users of diesel and being put under the thumb of the EPA with this DEF none sense.

EIA: US Refining Capacity Sinks To Near Decade Low

by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Jun 22, 2022 -

By Julianne Geiger Of OilPrice.com

Operable refining capacity in the United States hit a nearly decade low in 2022, the EIA’s latest Refining Capacity Report showed on Tuesday.

U.S. refining capacity fell this year to 17.94 million barrels per day as of January 1, according to the latest EIA data—down from 18.09 million bpd on January 1 last year. U.S. refining capacity is now the lowest it’s been since 2014.

The total number of operable refineries rose to 130, up from 129 last year, with the number of operating refineries increasing by 1 to 125.

Compared to operable U.S. refining capacity as of January 1, 2020, this year’s refining capacity has decreased by more than a million barrels per day.

[img]https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2022-06-22_05-17-40.jpg?itok=g0p8s3Ys[/img]

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.3 million bpd during the week ending June 10, according to the EIA’s Petroleum Status Report published last Wednesday—that’s a decrease of 67,000 bpd over the previous week—running at 93.7% of operable capacity.

The United States has more refining capacity than any other country, although China’s refining capacity could overtake the United States’ yet this year—in fact, it may have already overtaken the United States.

Gasoline prices in the United States began ticking up in 2021, and with high refining utilization rates and low crude product inventories, the refining segment has been fingered as one of the biggest price culprits.

Chevron’s CEO Mike Worth said earlier this month that he doesn’t see any relief to the refining capacity issue in sight, even going so far as to suggest that the United States may not see any new refineries built, ever, given their long lead times and lengthy ROI combined with the uncertainty of the future of fossil fuels in general given climate concerns.

A Warning About The Coming Shortages Of Diesel Fuel, Diesel Exhaust Fluid And Diesel Engine Oil

June 22, 2022 by Michael


What I am about to share with you is a developing situation, and I hope to share more once the facts become clearer. It appears that a very serious diesel crisis is coming in the months ahead, and that will have a dramatic impact on our economy. As you will see below, we are being warned that there will be shortages of diesel fuel, diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil. Most diesel vehicles require all three in order to run, and so a serious shortage of any of them would be a major disaster. Needless to say, simultaneous shortages of all three could potentially be catastrophic. Most Americans don’t spend much time thinking about diesel, but without it our supply chains collapse and we don’t have a functioning economy. In a recent Time Magazine article discussing the coming diesel fuel shortage, we are told that “the U.S. economy runs on diesel”…

Though most consumers shake their heads at the cost of gasoline and complain about the cost of filling up their car tanks, what they really should be worried about is the price of diesel. The U.S. economy runs on diesel. It’s what powers the container ships that bring goods from Asia and the trucks that collect goods from the ports and bring them to warehouses and then to your home. The farmers who grow the food you eat put diesel in their tractors to plow the fields, and the workers that bring construction equipment to build your home put diesel in their trucks.

Since January, supplies of diesel fuel have been steadily getting tighter.

As supplies have gotten tighter, prices have skyrocketed. The average price of a gallon of diesel fuel hit $5.50 a gallon in early May, and it has remained above that level ever since.

One of the biggest reasons for the supply crunch is a serious lack of refining capacity. Back in 1980, the U.S. had twice as many refineries…

There are also fewer refineries, which process crude oil into diesel and other products, in the U.S. than were just a few years ago. There are just 124 now operating, down from twice as many in 1980, and down from 139 in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association. The northeast region is particularly spare, with just seven refineries today, down from 27 in 1982.

There have already been some temporary outages of diesel fuel at a few locations around the country, and we are being warned that disruptions are likely to intensify during the summer months.

But the good news is that we aren’t going to run out of diesel fuel. It may become a lot more expensive, and there may be painful temporary shortages, but we won’t run out of it.

Unfortunately, the crisis that we are facing with diesel exhaust fluid is potentially much more serious.

If you have just been skimming this article, this is the part where you need to start really paying attention.

Newsweek is telling us that the United States “could soon experience a severe shortage of diesel exhaust fluid”…

The U.S. could soon experience a severe shortage of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), impacting U.S. drivers already hit with soaring fuel prices.

DEF is a solution made up of urea and de-ionized water that is needed for almost everything that runs on diesel. It reduces harmful gases being released into the atmosphere and works by converting nitrogen oxide produced by diesel engines into nitrogen and steam.

If you have a diesel vehicle that was sold in the United States after 2010, your vehicle could technically run without DEF, but in most cases your vehicle will simply not let you start it if the DEF tank is dry…

Can we call it a DEF jam? Everything is in short supply as supply chains continue to unlink. The latest commodity reportedly hit is DEF, or the blue diesel exhaust fluid that every diesel sold in the U.S. after 2010 needs to cut emissions. This means that every diesel truck, diesel RV, SUV, and car owner will likely have to look harder, and pay more for, DEF. A diesel engine can technically run without DEF, but your diesel vehicle likely won’t let you start it if the DEF tank is empty.

A lack of urea is the biggest reason for the growing shortage of DEF.

The United States is one of the largest importers of urea in the world, and Russia and China are two of the largest exporters. In previous years that wasn’t a problem, but now the war in Ukraine has dramatically changed things…

A major portion of our urea comes from Europe, and because of the war in Ukraine we’re seeing a shortage of it, according to Newsweek. Russia is one of the world’s major exporters of it. China, too, is a major exporter of it, and it has suspended exports. Weather, too, has caused supply chain disruptions. Since it’s also a major component in fertilizers, there’s intense competition for urea.

Without enough DEF, our economy is going to be in for a world of hurt.

Meanwhile, Mike Adams is reporting on the growing shortages of diesel engine oil that are starting to happen all over the nation…

Retailers, customers and distributors are all reporting shortages in diesel engine oil. This is not an imaginary problem, it is a real problem that is so far entirely ignored by the corporate media.

Apparently there are some diesel engine oil additives that are in extremely short supply, and one industry insider is telling us that this problem isn’t going to be resolved any time soon.

So what this means is that people are going to start running out of diesel engine oil.

In fact, it is already being reported that the trains in Sri Lanka will soon have to completely shut down because of a lack of diesel engine oil…

Sri Lanka Railways said that it will NOT be possible to operate trains in the future due to the lack of engine oil. A senior official at Sri Lanka Railways said that the current level of engine oil would only last for another two months.

That’s in line with the warning we’re hearing in the states: About 8 weeks of diesel engine oil remaining in the pipeline.

Just solving one of the shortages that I have described in this article will not be enough.

As I noted in the opening paragraph, a diesel vehicle requires diesel fuel, diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil in order to operate.

You need all three.

This is a story that I will be following very closely. Needless to say, there are enormous implications for our supply chains and for our economy as a whole if solutions cannot be found.

Biden Admin Considers Banning All Offshore Drilling As Energy Crisis Worsens: REPORT

Reuters
Daily Caller News Foundation logo

Jack McEvoy
Contributor
June 23, 2022


The Biden administration is mulling the prospect of banning new American offshore oil and natural gas drilling projects as fuel prices continue to spike, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, working closely with the White House to shape policy, will release its drafted five-year plan for new oil and gas drilling leases in federal waters to Congress by June 30, according to The New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter. The administration is likely to stop new offshore drilling projects in the Atlantic and the Pacific, and is considering whether to end leasing in the Arctic and Gulf of Mexico.

Gas prices have soared over the past several months, causing the president to be heavily criticized for his energy policy. In response to this crisis, Biden recently called for Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for 3 months and urged oil companies to increase their production of fuel.

The decision to potentially limit offshore drilling comes at a time in which climate activists continue to pressure the Biden administration into embracing more environmentally friendly energy solutions.

An offshore oil platform is seen in Huntington Beach, California September 28, 2014. Brent oil prices fell more than $2 a barrel to less than $88 on Monday, its lowest since 2010, after key Middle East producers signalled they would keep output high even if that meant lower prices. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

On June 6, Biden took further action to commit to a “clean energy future” in order to tackle climate change and “lower energy costs” through the use of the Defense Production Act. Biden previously used the act to accelerate the domestic production of solar panels to further his green energy policies.

Jeffrey Eshelman, Chief Operating Officer of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that a ban would only further restrict the supply of fuel, driving up prices and hurting Americans nationwide as roughly “20 percent of the nation’s natural gas and oil production comes from America’s offshore boundaries.” Eshelman pushed back on Biden’s call for more oil drilling and refining as a ban on offshore drilling would reflect his “true policies and progressive Green agenda.”

Eshelman further said that it is an understatement to say that the Biden administration is “out-of-touch with the nation’s pressing issues.” TheDCNF reached out to the Department of the Interior for comment, and a spokeswoman for the Interior replied that “the proposed plan hasn’t been published yet.”

The White House and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management did not immediately respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment.

White House Is Quietly Modeling For $200 Oil “Shock”
Translates into $10+ gasoline!

By Zero Hedge Wednesday, June 29, 2022

While the Biden administration is hoping and praying that someone – anyone – will watch the comical “Jan 6” kangaroo hearsay court taking place in Congress and meant to somehow block Trump from running for president in 2024 while also making hundreds of millions of Americans forget that the current administration could very well be the worst in US history, it is quietly preparing for the worst.

As none other than pro-Biden propaganda spinmaster CNN reports, when it comes to what really matters (at least according to Gallup), namely the economy, and specifically galloping gasoline prices, the White House is in historic shambles.

For an administration that ended last year forecasting a leveling off of 40-year high inflation and eager to tout a historically rapid recovery from the pandemic-driven economic crisis, there is a level of frustration that comes with an acutely perilous moment. Asked by CNN about progress on a seemingly intractable challenge, another senior White House official responded flatly: “Which one?”

The suspects behind the historic implosion are well known: “soaring prices, teetering poll numbers and congressional majorities that appear to be on the brink have created no shortage of reasons for unease. Gas prices are hovering at or around $5 per gallon, plastered on signs and billboards across the country as a symbolic daily reminder of the reality — one in which White House officials are extremely aware — that the country’s view of the economy is growing darker and taking Biden’s political future with it.”

“You don’t have to be a very sophisticated person to know how lines of presidential approval and gas prices go historically in the United States,” a senior White House official told CNN.

A CNN Poll of Polls average of ratings for Biden’s handling of the presidency finds that 39% of Americans approve of the job he’s doing. His numbers on the economy, gas prices and inflation specifically are even worse in recent polls. What CNN won’t tell you is that Biden is now polling well below Trump at this time in his tenure.

The CNN article then goes into a lengthy analysis of what is behind the current gasoline crisis (those with lots of time to kill can read it here) and also tries to explains, without actually saying it, that the only thing that can fix the problem is more supply, but – as we first explained – this can’t and won’t happen because green fanatics and socialist environmentalists will never agree to boosting output.
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Which brings us to the punchline: as CNN’s Phil Mattingly writes, “instead of managing an economy in the midst of a natural rotation away from recovery and into a stable period of growth, economic officials are analyzing and modeling worst-case scenarios like what the shock of gas prices hitting $200 per barrel may mean for the economy.”

Well, in an article titled, “Give us a plan or give us someone to blame,” this seems like both a plan, and someone to blame.

But unfortunately for Biden – and CNN which is hoping to reset expectations – it’s only going to get worse, because as we noted moments ago, while nobody was paying attention, Cushing inventories dropped to just 1 million away from operational bottoms at roughly 20MM barrels. This means that the US is officially looking at tank bottoms.

But wait, there’s more… or rather, it’s even worse, because as even Bloomberg’s chief energy guru Javier Blas notes, over the last 2 weeks, the US gov has drained 13.7 million barrels from the SPR, “and yet, commercial oil stockpiles still fell 3 million barrels over the period.”

Just imagine, Blas asks rhetorically, “if the SPR wasn’t there. Or what would happen post-Oct when sales end.”

And here is the punchline: at the current record pace of SPR drainage, one way or another the Biden admin will have to end its artificial attempts to keep the price of oil lower some time in October (or risk entering a war with China over Taiwan with virtually no oil reserve). This means that unless Putin ends his war some time in the next 5 months, there is a non-trivial chance that oil will hit a record price around $200 – precisely the price the White House is bracing for – a few days before the midterms. While translates into $10+ gasoline.

And while one can speculate how much longer Democrats can continue the “Jan 6” dog and pony show as the entire economy implodes around them, how America will vote in November when gas is double digits should not be a mystery to anyone.

Biden is a damn traitor who is trying to destroy the United States and he is still trying to start World War Three with Russia and China. The sorry damn Democrats think if they can create a crisis then they can steal another election.

$200 oil will guarantee a depression. When the government refuses to stop their intentional actions that caused it to begin with… it could last decades. This is their stated goal. Yo end American exceptionalism so that we are no better than any other S-hole nation the planet. Marxists always push the shared misery of equality. Rather than raising nations, they feel the need to knock down successful nations to level the economic playing field.

When everyone in a nation of s struggling THEN they can offer their solutions which “if done right” will bring about a utopian workers paradise. When this doesn’t work, they will find a scapegoat to blame for “undermining the revolution”…

US Emergency Oil Reserves Tumble To Record Low 27 Days Worth Of Supply

by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Jun 29, 2022 -

As we detailed earlier in the week, the latest weekly release has pushed the SPR below the 500 million barrels mark for the first time since 1986...

And as the chart above shows, the plummeting SPR is not having the impact on prices that President Biden hoped (which explains why he is blaming everyone and everything else for the rise in gas prices - as it becomes clear it's a refining capacity issue as much as anything else).

While that is ominous by itself, we note that in the context of US demand, it is even more of a concern as based on the latest Department of Energy estimate of Implied Crude Demand, there is just 27 days of supply left in the emergency oil reserve... a record low...

"Congress has been irresponsibly selling the SPR down," said Bob McNally, who in the early 2000s oversaw the Energy Department's efforts to replenish the SPR under former President George W. Bush, adding that "draining the reserve leaves the country and the world more vulnerable to geopolitical shocks."

Finally, we note that in response to growing concerns about the depleted reserve, the Department of Energy revealed plans to replenish emergency stocks.

This fall, it will launch a buyback process to repurchase 60 million barrels of oil, or one-third of the six-month 180-million-barrel emergency release.

As Andrew Moran writes at The Epoch Times, although the White House is exploring multiple avenues, such as urging OPEC to open the taps and pushing gasoline stations to diminish the pain at the pump, the best solution is greater North American output, says Tortoise Senior Portfolio Manager Rob Thummel.

“The best solution remains increasing oil and natural gas production from reliable supply sources like U.S. and Canada that will assist in balancing the global energy markets and reduce the geopolitical risk premium embedded in global oil and natural gas prices resulting in lower prices at the pump,” Thummel stated during a recent TortoiseEcofin QuickTake podcast.

Biden announced last week that he is encouraging Congress to lift the 18-cent federal gas tax for three months...

When President DJT tried to replenish the strategic oil reserves when the glut on the market (from huge surpluses from Fracking) had driven prices to unbelievable lows… the left/media (but I repeat myself) lambasted this as a hand out to campaign donators in the oil industry to prop it up and give profits to friends! (Insert head slap)

He rightly pointed out that it is an economic principle that one should “buy when prices are low” and “sell when prices are high” and not the other way around. At the 2019 prices we should have not only refilled the reserves, but invested in expanding the capacity of the reserve!

Exactly.

They don't want to fix anything. They're deliberately destroying this country.

This administration is committing “economic arson” like a homicidal pyromaniac with reckless abandon. It is not out of ignorance of economic laws, out of bad luck/misfortune but with the best of intentions. It is intentional and fully by detailed planned out design.

Yes, Biden is a Chi-Com and Obama puppet trying to destroy the USA any way he can including starting a nuclear war. Damn the EPA, damn the greening non-sense, damn ethanol being added to gasoline, damn electric vehicles, damn the FDA, and the sodomites are damming themselves to an eternity in hell.

Trump really won the 2020 election and we screwed ourselves allowing election fraud to be honored.

I think the popularity of modern liberalism and socialism is a reflection of the sad state our educational system is in. When people are only taught one point of view, with no discussion of other ideas even allowed, it's no wonder our country is in the sad state it's in. People below the age of about fifty or so were never taught how to think for themselves - they either taught themselves, or they didn't.

Our so-called "leaders" are the same way. Do you think AOC was ever taught anything other than Keynesian economics (or, in fact, any kind of economics)? Do you think Biden was ever taught anything other than how to get reelected? Do you think Kamala has ever hears of John Locke, or Adam Smith? Of course not - but they sure know who funds their campaigns.

I don't think or leaders and consciously trying to destroy America. They're just totally ignorant, like half the country is. And to me, that's even more scary.

And when you add in their hunger for more power, well...

Onward and upward,
airforce

They can't be that stupid. They know they are destroying the USA and their goal is to make us impoverished slaves. I had an economics class but I don't remember or care what Keynesian economics are or who John Locke or Adam Smith were are but I know that printing more fiat dollars will only make it worse and it is theft from every one who has saved money. I also know that electric cars won't help becasue fuel must be burned to create the electricity, energy is lost in the conversion, the damn Chi-Coms make the lithium batteries and batteries won't last.

At least Trump put enough justices on the supreme court to make some changes ..."In a majority opinion authored by chief justice John Roberts, the justices ruled that in the latest example of Democratic overreach, the Environmental Protection Agency was not specifically authorized by Congress to reduce carbon emissions when it was set up in 1970"...
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/l...assive-blow-bidens-climate-change-agenda

Biden economic advisor Brian Deese: Americans need to pay more for gas to defend the "Liberal World Order." Yeah, the democrats should campaign on that this fall.



Onward and upward,
airforce

Leftists are idiots. They want to pay more for gasoline and they want to pay more in taxes. They think the more crises they can create and the more economically depressed they can keep us the better their chances to stay in power are.