Power the Future executive director Daniel Turner speaks on Fox Business Tonight about Democrats blaming big oil for high energy prices and Biden’s talk of going to Canada to get oil.
If Western countries impose a “true embargo” on Russian oil and gas, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine could stall in just months, a former chief economic adviser to Putin told the BBC.
“I would bet that Russian military operations in Ukraine will probably be halted within a month or two,” said Dr. Andrei Illarionov, who resigned from his post as the Kremlin’s chief economic adviser in 2005, told the British News Agency newspaper.
“It’s one of the very effective tools that Western countries still have.”
A worker at an oil field owned by Bashneft, Bashkortostan, Russia, in this January 28, 2015 file photo. (REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/Files/Reuters)
Oil is Russia’s most lucrative export, accounting for more than a third of the country’s export earnings last year. Russia’s Treasury Ministry said it expected $9.6 billion in additional energy sales in April due to high oil prices in recent weeks.
The European Union banned coal imports from Russia last week but has so far refused to ban Russian oil imports over fears it would push oil prices even higher.
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President Biden was targeting “the main artery of the Russian economy” when he announced last month a ban on Russian oil imports, which accounted for about 8% of all oil imports to the United States last year.
“Russian oil will no longer be acceptable in US ports and the American people will deal another mighty blow to Putin’s war machine,” the president said in announcing the ban.
FILE PHOTO: A general view shows an oil treatment plant at the Yarakta oil field, owned by the Irkutsk Oil Company (INK), in the Irkutsk region, Russia March 10, 2019. Picture taken March 10, 2019. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko (REUTERS/ Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters photos)
Biden last month announced the release of about 1 million barrels from the strategic reserve to fight rising prices and took aim at oil companies, accusing them of not “doing their part” and “choosing to make extraordinary ones.” To generate profits without making additional investments to help deliver.”
According to Shell, the exit from Russia has already cost $5 billion
Republicans, meanwhile, have criticized the Biden administration for canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have brought oil from Canada to the United States
“The United States imports nearly 600,000 barrels of oil from Russia every day — an amount that could have been offset by the more than 800,000 barrels of oil that the Keystone XL pipeline is capable of delivering daily had the Biden administration not stood in the way ‘ wrote Sen. Tim Scott, RS.C., in an op-ed for Fox News last month.
A signage is seen on a gas pump at an Exxon gas station in Brooklyn, New York City, the United States, November 23, 2021. (REUTERS/Andrew Kelly / Reuters)
Biden also temporarily suspended the sale of oil and gas leases on public lands during his first days in office and was taken to court by several states that opposed the pause, but the Biden administration said they would reinstate it last month record, tape.
Meanwhile, Democratic members of the US House Energy and Trade Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee have criticized oil companies for alleged price gouging. Democrats and the Biden administration discourage banks from financing oil and gas projects and operations as part of their strategy to reduce fossil fuel use, and the Biden administration often promotes electric vehicles as a replacement for internal combustion engines. At the same time, the Biden administration has courted Iran and Venezuela to make up for oil production lost by the cancellation of the Keystone XL and replace Russian oil, in what energy experts see as political and wrong.
Ryan Sitton, an oil and gas engineer, founder of Pinnacle Reliability and a former Texas energy regulator with experience in Venezuela, said the Biden administration and Democrats are “committed to this anti-oil and gas narrative that’s bad for the US economy is so disturbing. ”
“If you want to win a Democratic primary, you have to be so adamantly anti-oil and gas that any suggestion that you’re thoughtful or pro-US energy is almost untenable,” he told Fox Business in March.
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U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures fell to $94.79 a barrel on Monday after hitting a 14-year high of $123.70 on March 7.
According to AAA, an average gallon of gasoline in the United States cost $4.11 on Monday, compared with about $4.33 a month ago.
Reuters contributed to this report.