OPEC PRODUCTION INCREASE: HOW LEFTIST MEDIA DISINFORMS BY LIES AND OMISSIONS

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!"
(Sir Walter Scott)

If you have the patience to go through this MSNBC news clip, great. If not, here is the brief. MSNBC is making a hero out of an octogenarian who poops in his pants on the world stage. It's not his fault. It's the bagful of medication he is fed to keep him lucid in public. Last week, OPEC+ announced they will increase crude oil production, which means prices can be expected to fall. MSNBC is now making Joe Biden into the greatest oil trader of them all. When oil prices were high, Biden had released 5 million barrels of oil from US strategic reserves to the local market in order to bring pump prices down. With this latest OPEC move, Biden can rebuild reserves inventory at cheaper prices, thus making hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.  MSNBC is deliriously selling to voters pump prices will fall, thanks to Biden.

MSNBC's title tells it all. Unabashed dramatization for an event the US had no role in. This is typical activist journalism of leftist mainstream media. A Trump-hater in a blog site I participate in brought up this propaganda piece and I had to refute to bring clarity. I thought this is a good story to share as an example why we can no longer take leftist mainstream media at face value.

Back in 2021, Biden had to beg OPEC to increase production to bring prices down. Forbes' headline says what the oil cartel thinks of Biden. He was told to go pound sand. far from what MSNBC tells their neolib viewers.

To ease pump prices, Biden sold from US strategic oil stockpile to local refineries. But here's what MSNBC didn't tell their neolib viewers.

Firstly, pump price increase was the consequence of Biden's energy policies. Trump had brought US energy independence. But Biden's first Executive Order was to cancel Keystone gas pipeline project and shutdown the fracking industry. Biden turned US from net gas exporter to net importer and caused an increase in energy prices all over the world.

Secondly, Trump had strengthened US military readiness by increasing the strategic oil reserves stockpile which Obama neglected. Without the buy-in by Trump, there wouldn't be any buffer inventory for Biden to sell.

Thirdly, strategic reserves is not buffer stocks for use as mechanism to influence price. It is for strategic purposes, such as in the event of war, or a break in the supply chain. In any case, there is never enough reserves to sustain a long term impact on prices. Biden undermined military preparedness for political gains in an effort to bring short term and temporary easing of high pump prices he himself caused.

Fourthly, if it was a matter of profit objectives, Biden could have sold physical stocks and hedged with a futures since the futures market was at a discount, that being the supply-demand expectations at the time. OPEC decision would not have mattered.

In the past two years, market conditions forced OPEC+ to decrease production output to support price levels. That agreement was to hold till second quarter 2024 and scheduled for review last Sunday. Going into the OPEC+ meeting, the world wondered what would the outcome be. But OPEC+ had already provided the hint much earlier. They see demand as still weak in the longer term but expect the Summer months to have a bump up increase as more people travel. In the last 2 years, OPEC+ countries have been compliant with agreed production levels while non-member countries increased output for more export dollars. The Sunday meeting expected OPEC to increase production to regain market share.

The production increase is simply the response of OPEC+ to market supply and demand conditions. It had nothing to do with Biden.

MSNBC is delirious the increase in production by OPEC+ will mean a downward pressure on oil prices leading to lower pump prices, just in time to buy Biden votes in November 5. How wrong can they be. OPEC's new increased production levels is effective in October 1. As crude oil prices drop, it will take another few months before it impact pump prices. There is a matter of production, delivery and refinery. Too late to sell to voters.

MSNBC also did not inform viewers that of the 5 million barrels released from strategic reserves, 950,000 barrels were sold to a Chinese oil trading company called Unipec. This is a subsidiary of Sinopec, a CCP wholly-owned company. BHR Partners, a private equity firm Hunter Biden cofounded in 2013, bought a $1.7 billion stake in Sinopec Marketing in 2015. Hunter at one point owned a 10 percent stake in BHR Partners through his wholly owned firm, Skaneateles LLC. According to Washington Examiner’s 9 Mar 2022 report, Hunter claimed he has since divested his shares and DCRA shows Skaneateles has been ‘revoked’. However, China’s National Credit Information Publicity System still shows Sinopec is 10% owned by BHR. Whatever the status of Hunter’s ownership is, the sales of strategic reserves oil to a CCT-owned company which had dealings with the president’s son, is fishy.

To a lesser-informed, Biden is a hero as portrayed by MSNBC. To those with an independent mind, MSNBS' video clip is a fawning piece of work by liberal activists disguised as journalists, who collect multi-million dollar pay cheques.

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