Who’s Buying Crude Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? 

In late March, the Biden administration authorized the release of about 1 million barrels of crude oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for six months – an effort to boost the global supply of oil and, in turn, tamp down gasoline prices.  

The SPR, which was established in 1975, can hold hundreds of millions of barrels of emergency crude oil that can be released when there are oil supply disruptions, such as the current shortages caused by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  

But when Reuters reported this month that more than 5 million barrels from the SPR had been exported to Europe and Asia, several readers asked us what was going on with the SPR sales.  

Staff writer D’Angelo Gore found that the SPR oil is sold to eligible companies that make the highest offers. That includes U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies and U.S. companies that can later export a portion of the oil they bought to other buyers abroad.  

The Biden administration doesn’t control what the highest bidders do with the oil. But in terms of the impact on gasoline prices, it also doesn’t matter where exactly the oil ends up. The goal is to increase the global supply.  

“Whether it stays in the United States or goes somewhere else is less important than does it succeed in changing the global balance of supply and demand, because that’s what drives the price,” Mark Finley, a fellow in energy and global oil at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, told D’Angelo.  

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for the fuel-price tracking service GasBuddy, also said the SPR oil releases were stopping gas prices “from escalating more substantially,” not so much “actively pushing prices down.”  

But that wouldn’t change even if all the SPR oil stayed in the U.S. “It’s irrelevant where it goes as long as it’s going into the market,” De Haan said.  

Read D’Angelo’s full story, “U.S. Selling Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the Highest Bidding Companies.” 

Reader: Was reading your info on Monkey Pox, very helpful as you always are.  My question: Like millions, I was vaxxed for Smallpox in my childhood. Does that vaccination offer any protection from Monkeypox?
 
FactCheck.org Science Editor Jessica McDonald: Great question. Yes, previous smallpox vaccination is expected to provide some protection against monkeypox, should you become exposed. However, as you say, you were vaccinated as a child, and your immunity may have waned.
 
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said, “several people” infected with monkeypox during this current outbreak and in an outbreak in 2003 were vaccinated against smallpox decades ago, so the protection isn’t absolute -- and the agency says people previously vaccinated against smallpox can still be vaccinated to protect against monkeypox.

In the current outbreak, two vaccines are being offered to known and presumed contacts of people with monkeypox: ACAM2000, a smallpox vaccine that is a newer and safer vaccine than the Dryvax vaccine that many Americans received prior to 1972, when routine smallpox vaccination ended; and Jynneos, an even newer and safer smallpox vaccine that is also approved for monkeypox.
 
Data, however, do suggest that previous smallpox vaccination, even from decades ago, is still helpful against monkeypox. For one, studies show that immunity from smallpox vaccination, which is cross-reactive with monkeypox, is quite long-lived. Antibody levels against smallpox remain high for seven or more decades and T cell responses decline slowly.
 
Evidence from the parts of Africa where monkeypox is endemic also points to smallpox vaccination as being protective. It has identified a lower risk of monkeypox in vaccinated versus unvaccinated people -- and less severe symptoms among the vaccinated if infected. 
 
One paper about monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of Congo found that the disease had become more frequent since the end of mass smallpox vaccination in 1980. In the study, more than 90% of monkeypox cases in the mid-2000s were in people born after the end of mass vaccination, while less than 4% were in people with evidence of previous smallpox vaccination.
 
“Furthermore,” the authors wrote, “our data suggest that vaccine-induced immunity is long lasting because individuals who were vaccinated against smallpox over 25 y ago still appear to be at significantly reduced risk of monkeypox.” The study found vaccinated people were more than five times less likely to get monkeypox than the unvaccinated.
 
Studies of the 2003 monkeypox outbreak in the U.S., which was due to exposures to pet prairie dogs infected by imported rodents from Ghana, are also consistent with the notion that smallpox vaccination is protective, if not foolproof.
 
In a CDC analysis of a subset of the 2003 outbreak cases, people vaccinated against smallpox were about 80% less likely to develop monkeypox illness than those who were unvaccinated. Additionally, all three of the individuals who were infected with monkeypox but did not develop classic monkeypox disease had been previously vaccinated.
 
Altogether, then, your smallpox vaccination is likely to help you avoid the worst of a monkeypox infection, even if it fails to prevent infection entirely. But of course, each person is different, and should you have a monkeypox exposure, you should discuss your vaccination and treatment options with your doctor.
 
Since we wrote our article, the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. has ballooned to more than 1,000, although that’s likely to be an undercount. Monkeypox is still primarily spreading among men who have sex with men, although that doesn’t preclude others from getting the disease.

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• "Georgia Senate Candidate Herschel Walker Spouts Inaccurate ‘Bad Air’ Theory of Climate Change": In speaking about the Green New Deal, Herschel Walker, the former professional football player vying for a Senate seat in Georgia, incorrectly suggested that U.S. climate efforts were pointless because “China’s bad air” would simply move over into American “air space.”
• "Social Media Posts Misleadingly Edit and Misrepresent Biden Remarks from Teleprompter": President Joe Biden quoted the Supreme Court majority opinion on ending the constitutional right to abortion in remarks he made on July 8. Social media posts falsely claim he mistakenly read teleprompter cues. A White House press secretary told us Biden intentionally said “end of quote” and then said “repeat the line” for emphasis, and the full, live remarks support that explanation. 
• "Q&A on Financial Disclosures by Government Scientists": In this story, we’ll explain what we know about the financial and conflict-of-interest disclosure requirements for Dr. Anthony Fauci, other National Institutes of Health higher-ups and members of two U.S. vaccine advisory committees.
• "Fake Shinzo Abe Tweet Dredges Up Baseless Clinton Conspiracy Theory": Internet trolls have used the death of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and a fake tweet purportedly from Abe, to promote a long-standing, unfounded conspiracy theory that the Clintons are responsible for the deaths of multiple people. A suspect reportedly with a personal grudge has been arrested for the assassination.
  
• "Posts Incorrectly Cite Map as Showing Future Effects of Climate Change": An architect created a map in 2015 as a “thought experiment” to show how the Mediterranean Sea would fit inside the United States. However, social media posts have misinterpreted the map as a prediction of the impact of climate change. The map’s creator said it is not related to climate change in any way.
• "‘Liberal World Order’ Is Decades-Old Term Misinterpreted by Social Media Posts": “Liberal world order” is a decades-old term referring to a system of global cooperation. A Biden administration adviser used the term to explain why gasoline prices are tied to the war in Ukraine. But social media posts use the adviser’s comments to misleadingly claim Biden is pushing a “new liberal world order” to make Americans pay “high gas prices forever.”
• "Social Media Posts Misrepresent Police Statement About Fourth of July Shooters": Seven people died in a mass shooting in a Chicago suburb on Independence Day. Police said they believe the shooter was dressed in women’s clothing to conceal his identity and help him during his escape. But some social media users are claiming, with no evidence, that he is transgender.

• "Publicaciones relacionan infundadamente a los Síndromes de Muerte Súbita por Arritmia con las vacunas contra el COVID-19": Los Síndromes de Muerte Súbita por Arritmia o SADS (por sus siglas en inglés) han sido estudiados durante décadas y son causados por problemas cardíacos genéticos. Pero publicaciones en redes sociales sugieren, sin pruebas, que los SADS están relacionados con las vacunas contra el COVID-19.