Charts of the Month - March '22

Gasoline and Oil Exports

The entire world is feeling the squeeze at the pump.

In the U.S., gas prices broke all-time records this month, and with the summer just around the corner and no end in sight from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we’re either going to see real demand destruction (see Roger’s piece from this week here), or consumers will go about their normal summer behavior and trek across the country in their SUVs, eat the incremental costs, and likely, have to cut back elsewhere.

We think there’s potential that if prices remain elevated for long enough, Biden’s cute-but-so-ineffective-it’s-laughable strategy of releasing token amounts of oil from the SPR to ‘ease prices’ (read get some midterm votes) will become obvious propaganda, and investors, media, and consumers will look elsewhere and eventually stumble upon this… (as we write this, the White House has announced they're potentially going to release 180m barrels from the SPR, which, is borderline treason at this point given the minimal effects this will have on gas prices and the dangerous effects it will have on the U.S. in the face of a real emergency, which high gas prices, while uncomfortable, are not. But with midterm elections right around the corner, a move like this, unfortunately, is not unexpected)

We put out a tweet thread detailing the history of the US export ban being lifted in 2015 as the effectiveness of the shale revolution threatened to bankrupt the West Texas E&Ps as prices plummeted (they literally got too good at what they do).