US, Other Countries Battle OPEC With Release From Oil Reserves

While Robert continues his trip to Europe and across the Continental U.S., a significant piece of news has been dominating the headlines. Although we’ve been closely monitoring the release of 60 million barrels of crude on our Energy Ticker page, we also wanted to generate some discussion on the topic, here, on the R-Squared Energy Blog.

Robert has, in the past, covered the topic of using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a weapon to control prices. In one article, he argued against politicians who were calling for a release, titling the essay: “Speculator’s Political Reserve?“. Robert also observed the Jekyll & Hyde phenomenon in “Contradicting Goals: Cheap Gas and Lower Carbon Emissions“. The topic was also covered in his “Debunking Five Myths about Gas Prices” essay.

To kick things off, here’s a quick bullet-point roundup of facts and analysis:

There certainly are more angles to this story than the above links covered, so feel free to add your own thoughts or links in the comments. We may edit the above list to include new information or interesting thoughts and links posted in the comments.