Exclusive: U.S., Britain to agree emergency oil stocks release

Reuters ^ | 3/15/2012 | Richard Mably

[mojito]

Britain has decided to cooperate with the United States in a bilateral agreement to release strategic oil stocks, two British sources said, in an effort to prevent high fuel prices derailing economic growth in an election year.

A formal request from the United States to the UK to join forces in a release of oil from government-controlled reserves is expected "shortly" following a meeting on Wednesday in Washington between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, who discussed the issue, one source said.

Britain would respond positively, the two sources said.

[SoFloFreeper]

The administration strongly desires international support and coordination from other strategic stock holders, but is encountering stiff resistance from some IEA members who think strategic stocks should only be used for severe supply disruptions," McNally said.

I am amazed al-Reuters is even admitting the Messiah is getting pushback from foreign leaders.

Also noted in the article: the release probably won't even happen until SUMMER.

So this is all psychological operations...Obama is playing a game with our economic lives.

[tcrlaf]

FALLING POLL NUMBERS FOR OBAMA ARE NOT A NATIONAL EMERGENCY

What part of “Strategic” is it that these clowns don’t understand?

And it comes within an HOUR of SWIFT cutting off Iran. This is no coincidence.

[sportutegrl]

This is NOT the purpose for which the Strategic Reserves were created!

Without Cameron's buy in, everyone will accuse Obama of releasing the reserves to save his own skin. This way, Obama can claim a global oil catastrophe, since England is doing it, too.

[Rodm]

The only emergency is Zero’s poll numbers are in free fall

[Drew68]

Well, that should bring prices down - for about a month. What then?

A month? I'm confident we'll see prices lower until right around the first Wednesday in Novemeber. And on this day they'll shoot back up again.

Enjoy it while you can.

[nhwingut]

So basically the thesis of this story is that Cameron agrees to help Obama with re-election. Nothing more. Nothing less.

If this were a Repub. There would be calls for impeachment.

[Son House]

Have the 99%er’s(Democrats, we know) been told how many barrels of oil they use everyday?

[FourPeas]

Barry’s using US assets for his personal gain? Par for the course.

Weakening the US seems to be his purpose second only to benefiting himself personally. It will take extraordinary work to salvage whatever is left of this country after his sorry behind is gone. I pray we don’t wait too long.

[agere_contra]

Great Britain does indeed have a SPR, but no-one knows how large it is nor where it is stored. It could be a single tanker docked at Scapa Flow for all I know.

The UK is basically providing political cover to Bambi here - hope we got something nice in exchange! Maybe a barbeque set for number 10?

[Williams]

Saw a headline on Bloomberg, this report has been denied.

[trebb]

Well, that should bring prices down - for about a month. What then?

strategic reserves? A nickel, a dime?

[socialism_stinX]

It's a really bad move to deplete the SPR when there is a possible supply disruption later this year caused by a military conflict with Iran, and any release of oil from the SPR will NOT bring down oil prices significantly. Oil and gasoline prices will not decline significantly for the following reasons: 1) If they release a small amount of oil, that won't be enough oil to affect the huge oil commodity market, and 2) Because a conflict with Iran could cause a supply disruption later this year or next year, if they release a substantial amount of oil that could bring down oil prices for a few weeks but the reduced reserves then make the US more vulnerable to a future supply disruption and that would offset the impact of higher short-term inventories. So there will be no change in oil prices beyond a few weeks from the date of the release of oil. Oil traders have already included all the oil in the SPR in their calculations of where oil prices could go if there is a supply disruption, and moving some of the SPR oil into above-ground storage tanks doesn't change the total amount of readily available US oil reserves. It simply moves the oil from one storage facility to another.

So the most likely end result of any oil release will be no change in oil prices beyond a few weeks into the future, and a substantial release of SPR oil could actually cause oil prices to RISE in the second half of this year because we'll be more vulnerable to a supply disruption. So this release of oil seems more like mere psyops being run against oil traders, who are far too smart to fall for this kind of trick. The oil market and oil stocks has already bounced back from this news release, and XLE is actually unchanged today, which shows that stock traders may be expecting an increase in oil prices later in the year caused by this poorly-reasoned decision to release strategic reserves.

This is a really bad move. The SPR is intended as an emergency reserve to keep our economy going if we have an extended supply disruption. It is not intended to be used for short-term management of oil prices or for political manipulation of the oil and gasoline markets. This release of strategic reserves also will make America more vulnerable to a supply disruption in the Middle East.

[Principled]

LOL

nicely put JPG.

I hope newt or rick says it like that on the news for the next month!

[SpinnerWebb]

What part of “Strategic” is it that these clowns don’t understand?

Re-election constitutes a national emergency for EVERY incumbent president. They will do ANYTHING to stay in office. They will do EVERYTHING to stay in office.

[FedsRStealingOurCountryFromUs]

But what if we deplete our reserves so 0bama can get elected and then Israel attacks Iran? Aren’t we kinda screwed for oil at that point?

[combat_boots]

You are giving away the plot!

[az_gila]

Apparently lots of countries have strategic reserves -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_strategic_petroleum_reserves#European_Union

But the US action last summer didn’t do much in the long term trend -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13893252

[Truth29]

Fox Business is saying this report is in error and that there has been no such agreement.

[Mouton]

Every day this clown price does something to really P me off.

[diverteach]

Yes, but its an “EMERGENCY”.

And it’s only an emergency because zero’s poll numbers are tanking during an election year.