Don't worry Team Biden will use every tool...

[dan_s]

A White House official said the Biden administration was closely monitoring the cost of oil and gasoline and "using every tool at our disposal to address anti-competitive practices in U.S. and global energy markets to ensure reliable and stable energy markets." < What a joke these clowns have become.

Economic data from the U.S. and elsewhere in recent days have pointed to signs of higher inflation, encouraging many to seek a hedge by betting on energy prices which seem firmly underpinned right now. According to CFTC data released on Friday, net speculative long positioning in crude oil futures hit its highest in seven weeks last week, but is still barely at half the level seen in 2018 before Donald Trump started his trade war with China in earnest.

That would suggest that there is still plenty of room for financial players to be sucked into energy as a hedge against inflation in the short term. However, the broader energy crisis in China and, less acutely, India is already leading to demand destruction in the form of temporary factory closures, while China's real estate sector - a big energy consumer - is also slowing sharply as fears of debt defaults grow. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries expects the global market to swing back into a surplus by early 2022, its gradual output increases catching up with global demand as the latter loses momentum.

U.S. output is only slowly responding to the opportunity presented by higher spot prices, with many shale players either unwilling or unable to take on fresh debt to raise output. Data from the U.S. government suggest that output from the Permian basin in Texas has risen by less than 500,000 barrels a day since the start of the year, and even that has been partly offset by falling production in Alaska and - more recently - a temporary but significant weather-related hit to the Gulf of Mexico.