US oil pushes Biden to open domestic drilling after OPEC+ cuts production
American energy companies mocked President Biden over the OPEC cartel’s surprise decision to slash oil production — and said his only option was an immediate about-face on domestic drilling.
“Life comes at you pretty fast…” the US Oil & Gas Association jeered in a series of blistering tweets.
The industry group also invoked the president’s controversial fist bump with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman during a trip to the repressive kingdom in July, saying, “Seems like just yesterday the President was meeting with the Saudis…”
“The [White House] has one option left and it is the one option they should have never turned away from in the first place – the US based oil and gas industry,” it said.
The American Petroleum Institute also retweeted a message from last month in which it warned, “Access to domestic energy is critical to our ability to meet demand.”
“Just a reminder — amid calls to increase domestic production, the Biden administration has leased fewer acres for oil and gas production on federal lands and waters than any other administration dating back to the end of World War II,” it added.
OPEC+ — a consortium of countries that includes Russia — on Wednesday announced it was cutting back output by 2 million barrels a day, pushing the price of benchmark Brent crude oil to $93.21 a barrel from a recent low of $84.
The decision flew in the face of what CNN called a “full-scale pressure campaign” by Biden’s administration against the move.
Despite the demands from Big Oil, the White House is instead seeking to roll back sanctions on the socialist regime in Venezuela, which would allow Chevron Corp. to resume drilling there, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That would potentially pave the way toward reopening US and European markets to Venezuelan oil, people familiar with the plan told the Journal.
