OPEC Move Is Not Worth Biden’s Hype, And Won’t Stop Record Gasoline Prices

OPEC Move Is Not Worth Biden’s Hype, And Won’t Stop Record Gasoline Prices

Biden speaking by video with a different cartel, of baby formula makers, June 1, 2020. Another day, another record for gasoline prices, which hit an average of $4. 715 a gallon in the United States. That's up 50% in a year and double what they were when President Joe Biden took office in January 2021. At current daily demand of 8. 9 million barrels (374 million gallons), that means Americans are paying nearly $900 million more at the pump, every day. So it wasn't surprising when a White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre this morning cheered "the important decision from OPEC+ today" to ostensibly increase its oil exports by 650, 000 barrels per day over each of the next two months. This instead of the 430, 000 bpd per month rate of supply increases that the cartel had planned for the next three months. More oil faster is good news right now. Unfortunately, behind the headlines, OPEC's move is less momentous than it seems. That's because the group has already shown itself unable to live up to its existing post-pandemic plan to return oil supply to the market. For a year OPEC has been restoring the deep cuts of 10 million