Biden's iron fist "kills oil prices": hurry up and check! Oil majors bid up oil prices, "for the rich"

With the arrival of the Thanksgiving holiday, the road traffic in the United States will usher in another peak, the demand for gasoline in the United States will increase, and the rising price of crude oil will push up the cost of gasoline, and the price of gasoline will continue to climb
.

According to the latest data from the American Automobile Association, the average selling price per gallon of gasoline is now about $3.
41, close to a seven-year high, up 60%
in the past 12 months, due to multiple factors such as continued tight supply chains.

U.
S.
President Joe Biden was dissatisfied with the high gasoline prices in the United States and sent a letter to the FTC on November 17, urging the agency to "immediately use all tools" to investigate
the "potentially illegal behavior" of oil companies suspected of inflating gasoline prices.

Biden said in the letter that unfinished gasoline is the main component of gasoline that American consumers buy at gas stations, and retail gasoline prices are generally consistent
with crude gasoline.
But crude gasoline cut prices by at least 5 percent last month, while gasoline sold at gas stations rose 3 percent over the same period, "the unexplainably large gap between the two is much higher than the pre-pandemic average.
"

While not giving any tangible evidence, the letter insists that "there is growing evidence of anti-consumer behavior by oil and gas companies" and that retail gasoline prices at gas stations remain high while costs for oil and gas companies are falling, making Americans pay more for gas for anticompetitive or potentially illegal practices
.

The letter also said that the two largest U.
S.
oil and gas companies by market capitalization (namely ExxonMobil and Chevron Oil) are on track to double their net profits from 2019 levels, are making substantial profits from rising energy prices, and announced plans to repay shareholders
with billions of dollars in share buybacks and dividend hikes this year.

According to Bloomberg, a White House official said the FTC may decide to begin an investigation to gather pricing models from gasoline companies and data
on actual pricing.

According to the American Automobile Association AAA, the average price of gasoline per gallon in the United States on Wednesday was $3.
41, up from $3.
31 a month ago and $2.
12 a year ago, maintaining the highest level since 2014
.
Soaring gasoline prices have become a major political nuisance
for Democrats to whom Biden belongs, ahead of next year's midterm congressional elections.

U.
S.
gasoline prices topped $3 a gallon for the first time in five years this spring and have risen steadily since, with average prices rising more than 60 percent in mid-November from a year earlier, helping to drive U.
S.
CPI consumer inflation up 6.
2 percent year-over-year in October to a 31-year high
.

Many experts expect energy prices to continue to rise in the coming months, and the supply bottlenecks caused by the epidemic, the increase in travel after the easing of anti-epidemic lockdowns, and the destruction of Hurricane Ida in the southern US refinery have led to an imbalance between supply and demand and pushed up oil prices
.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the largest lobbying group in the oil and gas industry, responded that Biden's letter to the FTC "distracts attention from the fundamental shift that is taking place in the energy market":

"Instead of investigating daily regulated and closely monitored markets or pleading with OPEC to increase supply, we should encourage the safe and responsible development of U.
S
.
-made oil and gas.
"

Zerohedge, a financial blog known for its poisonous tongue, also sarcastically said that the average price of gasoline includes a price of $1.
95 per gallon and a gas tax of $0.
57 per gallon, which accounts for nearly 75%
of the average price of $3.
41.
The FTC is most likely to conclude that gasoline prices correlate with higher oil prices, which means that it will not find any misconduct in pricing by oil companies:

Prices are set based on input costs and taxes, and in fact, one should probably tell Biden that taxes make up a significant portion
of the final price of gasoline, in addition to the cost of oil.

As for the energy companies that generate huge profits, when oil prices collapsed last April and the US oil WTI fell into negative territory for the first time in history, all energy companies were on the verge of bankruptcy and had to take on tens of billions of dollars in debt to survive.
At a time when gasoline prices fell to their lowest level in years, why didn't the White House ask why?

Biden's aggressive green policies have weakened the U.
S.
energy sector, and it's clear that a repeat of the 1970s price controls will follow, which is simply shocking
considering that Brent crude is currently just $81/b.
What will the White House do when oil prices soar to $120 or more sometime in 2022, as many have warned? ”

Other media outlets have found that former presidents of both parties in the United States have called for a similar investigation
into suspected gasoline price gouging and market manipulation.
For example, in April 2006, ahead of the midterm congressional elections in November of that year, Republican President George W.
Bush directed the U.
S.
Department of Justice, the FTC, and the Department of Energy to vigorously enforce laws related to gasoline price gouging, calling on state attorneys general to pursue illegal fraud
.

Therefore, Biden's move to send a letter to the FTC today to track down high gasoline prices is more like a political gesture
ahead of the midterm elections.

Wall Street News has mentioned that Biden has recently frequently called for the OPEC+ alliance led by Saudi Arabia and Russia to increase production excessively, but the alliance refused
.
Some top advisers have also urged the White House to release oil from the National Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep prices down, but the administration has yet to do so, citing "likely to do little to alleviate structural issues such as U.
S.
crude oil production well below pre-pandemic levels.
"

In August, the director of the White House's National Economic Council sent a letter to the chairman of the FTC asking for an investigation into the discrepancy between
oil prices and the cost of gasoline at gas stations.
In response, the FTC has rigorously scrutinized illegal mergers in the oil and gas market, investigated alleged abuses in the franchise market, and will determine jurisprudence to challenge business practices
such as retail gas stations that allow large companies to acquire family businesses.