U.S. crude oil reserves continue to hit a record high

Since 2015, the weekly increment of US commercial oil inventories has exceeded expectations significantly. As of the week ending on January 22, the market is expected to be 2.7 million barrels, and actually reserves 10.07 million barrels; in the week of February 27, the market is expected to be 4.15 million. Barrels actually stored 10.3 million barrels. This made the US commercial crude oil reserves continue to refresh the historic high of 397.7 million barrels in April 2014. By the beginning of March, it had reached 444 million barrels.

Not only that, the US crude oil reserves including strategic oil reserves and oil product reserves reached 1.873 billion barrels, according to the latest average daily average of 1966 million barrels, the number of strategic petroleum reserve days is 95 days, which has greatly exceeded the conventional 65 to 70 days s level.

This seems unreasonable. Because the United States has achieved significant achievements in energy independence, with the development of offshore oil and shale oil and gas, the external dependence of US oil has dropped from 63.66% in 2000 to the latest 46.3%. Coupled with the use of new energy and the expectation of economic recession in China and Europe, international oil prices will remain low for a long period of 5 to 10 years. Therefore, the US’s increase in strategic oil reserves on such a large scale is not justified in terms of commercial interests.

A reasonable explanation is that the United States has already predicted that there will be a serious oil crisis in the Middle East. If the Persian Gulf is robbed, oil cannot be shipped, and the EU and China now have less oil reserves (26 days and 15 days, respectively). High external dependence (67% and 60% respectively), and high proportion of oil imported from the Middle East (70.4% and 50%, respectively), the EU and China’s normal supply of oil can only support 50 to 70 days . The United States because of its foreign dependence on oil is significantly lower than the EU and China, more importantly, the proportion of oil imports in the Middle East is only about 10%, the United States can maintain the normal supply of oil for 2065 days.

In other words, if the Persian Gulf is smashed, up to two months later, the EU and China’s oil will be seriously deprived, and even a serious economic and financial crisis will break out. The possibility of the dissolution of the European Union and the Euro will not be ruled out, and China is likely to encounter the stock market. The property market, bond market, and the serious crisis in the country.

By then, the United States may replace the Middle East as the main supplier of oil and have the ability to force China and Europe to accept its harsh political and economic game rules. That is, the U.S. will obtain high profits at extremely high oil prices in exchange for quality assets of the EU and China, especially gold production, and cancel large-scale U.S. national debts, thereby realizing the revival of the U.S. dollar, and even not rule out expanding U.S. dollar rule to Europe. And the possibility of East Asia.

The recent resumption of Iran’s nuclear talks back to the international spot has also confirmed this conjecture. Although Iran is prepared to make concessions, US President Barack Obama has demanded that Iran freeze its nuclear program for at least 10 years and Iran will reject it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama’s dispute over the Iranian issue has also drawn attention. This may indicate the closeness of the time window of Iran’s use of force.

Therefore, the author once again strongly recommends that China should make every effort to increase its oil strategic reserve by taking full advantage of the opportunities before the sharp depreciation, so as to plan ahead and win more strategic buffer space for the future.