“Hypocritical” – criticism of oil imports from Russia is growing in the USA
“Shutting off oil and gas would insanely weaken the European economy”
EU energy ministers meet in Brussels to discuss the consequences of the war in Ukraine. “There is a fear that Russia could use the heavy sanctions to shut off oil and gas supplies,” says WELT correspondent Tobias Kaiser.
America has vehemently urged Germany to stop Nord Stream 2, but continues to get oil from Russia itself. President Biden fears consumer anger over high gas prices. Proposals for a new energy policy are now challenging his green agenda.
Dhe contradiction is obvious. For years, the United States urged Germany to abandon the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) put the project on hold last week. On Tuesday, the operating company in Zug, Switzerland, laid off all of its 140 employees.
>>> All developments in Ukraine in the live ticker >>>
Meanwhile, the US continues to import Russian oil. Their far-reaching sanctions against Russia leave out the energy sector. Although the United States is much less dependent on Russian energy than Germany, it still gets around seven percent of its oil imports from Russia. In December 2021, the US imported more oil than Russia only from Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
In the past year be the volume of oil imports from Russia to the US, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Imported in the last six years Americans monthly on average 19.5 million barrels of oil from Russia. The recently increased share of Russian oil in imports is partly due to the US sanctions against Venezuela.
The relatively high energy prices are causing problems for consumers. The price of petrol is depressing consumer sentiment, making a strong contribution to 7.5 percent inflation – and indirectly to President Joe Biden’s miserable popularity ratings. Biden is attacking Vladimir Putin, but, as of today, wants to continue buying oil from Russia so as not to arouse even more consumer anger. An even higher oil price would cloud the Democrats’ – already modest – prospects for the November midterm elections.
But now there is opposition from within his own party. “While Americans lament events in Ukraine, at this time of war, the US continues to allow the importation of more than half a million barrels a day of crude oil and other petroleum products from Russia,” said Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. That makes “no sense at all” and poses a threat to the energy security of the USA. The USA “can and must increase domestic energy production”, demands the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee. Manchin, who hails from the coal state of West Virginia, calls for nothing less than “energy independence.” If ever there was a time “to be energy independent, it’s now.”
He called on his own government and industry to “ban crude oil imports from Russia”. “It’s hypocritical to ask other countries to do what we can do for ourselves in a cleaner way,” Manchin said. The gnarly right-wing Democratic senator is already making life difficult for Biden. Manchin blocks its central climate and social package in the Senate.
The USA is by no means the only country that still obtains energy from Russia. On the fifth day of the war against Ukraine, Russian oil and gas continue to flow west. The energy sector represents the biggest loophole in the sanctions packages. Trade is thriving. Putin collects. Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba recently called for a “complete embargo on Russian oil and gas.”
Buying it now means paying for the murder of Ukrainian men, women and children, Kuleba argues. The more brutally Putin acts against Ukrainian civilians, the greater the pressure in the West to reduce imports from Russia. The release of the West’s oil reserves would be a first step.
In the US, Republicans are pushing for more oil and gas drilling in their own country these days. This appeal to the Biden government was heard again and again at the right-wing Republican CPAC conference in Orlando over the weekend. Republicans have accused Biden of halting the Keystone XL pipeline and drilling on state land. These environmental choices made the United States more dependent on other countries.
The Association of American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) refers to the US sanctions against Venezuela with a view to increasing oil imports from Russia. Its own refineries on America’s Gulf Coast imported crude and semi-finished oils from Russia, which could then be processed into other products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Gasoline and diesel made up only a small portion of Russia’s imports to the US, which mostly went to the East Coast, according to the Oil Lobby Association.
Most Russian oil imports end up in refineries in the states of California and Washington. The temporary increase in crude oil imports to the US Gulf of Mexico coast was due to the disruption in domestic oil production caused by Hurricane Ida in 2021.
Meanwhile, news from Canada caused a stir in the United States on Monday: Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the first G-7 member to announce that his country would no longer import Russian crude oil. “This measure sends a strong message,” Trudeau said.
In truth, the move is more symbolic: Canada’s Natural Resources Minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, announced on the same day that Canada had not imported crude oil from Russia since 2019.