This ability to turn oil demand on and off, ostensibly at low economic cost, allows the world’s biggest oil importer to move prices just as the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies have long done through their control of half of global output. And as the cartel is weakened by the recent departure of the United Arab Emirates and strained production capacity of its remaining Gulf members, China’s market power is growing. As one oil-trading boss puts it, “China is the new OPEC.”
What China has done in this situation has been very impressive.
Ironic how China is better prepared now than USA, that has had huge oil reserves as a strategic measure even before China was industrialized. Exactly so they could do what China did.
But USA failed because their reserves were pretty low already.
Biden and trump both hugely emptied the reserves for short-term gain, without putting very much, if any, back. Like any company that has been bought-out by corporate raiders, the US has ruined its name for short term gain and is now being parted out. The next decade or 3 will be like living in a mining town after the mine leaves it a superfund site, from coast to coast. Perhaps a few large cities will survive with only deep scars.