by WorldTribune Staff, June 20, 2021
Team Biden's assault on the U.S. energy industry has resulted in record imports of crude oil from Russia and the trend is expected to continue in the coming months, industry analysts say.Imports of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia reached 22.9 million barrels in March, the highest level since August of 2010, according to International Energy Agency (IEA).
"Of the total amount, crude oil imports from Russia stood at 6.1 million barrels. Russia has become the third-largest oil exporter to the United States," The Epoch Times reported.
ClipperData, a commodity intelligence company that monitors cargo shipments worldwide, tweeted on June 7: “Last month we saw a record 5.75 million barrels of Russian crude discharged in the U.S., and we’re projecting a further record this month of 7.5mn bbls.”
Soon after the Jan. 20 inauguration, Joe Biden shut down the Keystone XL pipeline and ordered a pause on new oil and natural gas permitting on public lands, devastating the U.S. energy industry that had flourished under President Donald Trump and made the U.S. energy independent.
“It’s disturbing to our industry that the Biden administration goes out of its way to disadvantage the American producer while buttressing the Iranian and Russian industries,” Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, told The Epoch Times.
Biden has “tipped us into oil dependence on Russia just a year after complete independence,” Sgamma added, calling it “a geopolitical gift” to the Kremlin.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude reached its highest price in two years last week as it surpassed the $70 mark. Top commodity traders are predicting that oil prices could see $100 per barrel due to supply constraints. Oil hasn’t traded above $100 per barrel since 2014.
“There’s been kind of a dearth of investment in fossil fuels, which is going to leave us undersupplied as we go forward,” Phil Flynn, senior energy analyst at the Price Future Group, told The Epoch Times in a recent interview.
Flynn noted that the Biden administration’s climate policies have been a major factor in driving the prices.
“U.S. oil production has fallen by 1.715 million barrels [per day] from a year ago, so a large part of that void is being filled by Russia,” Flynn wrote in a recent op-ed on Fox Business.
“During Trump’s term, America was competing with Russia and Saudi Arabia to be the world’s dominant oil and gas producer, yet under Biden, we are retreating from that race in the name of climate change,” Flynn wrote.
Washington Times reporter Rowan Scarborough noted in a Facebook post:
"Updating my Putin-Biden scorecard. Biden delivering jobs and cash to Putin's Russia. But just remember it was Trump who was in bed with Putin (liberal mass media, Democrats)"
The oil imports seem to put a new twist on the saying "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer"
And, to think, Joe Biden once referred to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin as a "killer."
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