Biden selling US strategic oil reserves to Chinese company linked to his son

According to the PanAm Post portal, the US Department of Energy has approved the sale of 950 000 barrels of crude oil from the country’s strategic reserves. It will go to Unipec America Inc, a subsidiary of China Petrochemical Corporation, also known as Sinopec. In 2015, Hunter Biden co-founded BHR Partners which acquired a $1,7 billion stake in Sinopec Marketing.

Unipec America is the US arm of China’s largest trading company, Unipec, which in turn is wholly owned by China Petrochemical Corporation, a state-run Chinese oil and gas company based in Beijing with close ties to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

No baby formula

This negotiation involving the Bidens, was part of the release of 30 million barrels from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve for “emergency sale” with the purpose of “providing a bridge in times of war to support American consumers and the global economy in response to the war that Vladimir Putin started against Ukraine”.

Of the 126 bids received by the Department of Energy, 12 were eventually accepted, including Unipec America Inc.’s bid. “The Biden administration should not send our reserves that we need for our country to China. It’s foolish and defies common sense,” said Republican Senator Marco Rubio.

During his election campaign, Joe Biden had assured voters that none of his family members “would have business dealings with anyone associated with a foreign company or a foreign country”. But in late April 2021, just after his first 100 days in office, Fox News reviewed his business records. They revealed that the President’s son still held a 10 percent stake in BHR Partners.

Daniel Turner, founder of Power the Future, an organization campaigning for better energy policies, told Fox News recently that the situation warranted an investigation: “The President has told us that he is releasing these reserves to lower the price of gas nationwide. And then we find that he sells them to the world market […]  And then you find out that Hunter Biden is a major investor in one of the companies that brokered this deal.”

Citing customs data, Reuters reported that more than five million barrels of oil released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) were diverted away from US refiners to foreign countries, after Biden ordered the Department of Energy to release a total of about 260 million barrels of stored oil to combat record fuel prices.

In the US meanwhile, there has been a shortage of baby formula, as fuel prices keep rising.

“President Biden needs to remember that our strategic energy reserves are for emergencies, not to cover-up bad policies. America needs to flip the switch and increase our capacity to produce and refine oil here at home. Now is not the time to use our strategic stockpile,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers told Fox News Digital in a statement. She warned that Biden was compromising not only US energy security, but national security.

No consequences for the Bidens

Hunter Biden’s laptop affair and proof of his criminal foreign business deals in Ukraine have repeatedly made headlines in the US – all without charges being brought against any of the Bidens. The White House press secretary this week denied that the president had spoken to his son about foreign business deals.

The Secret Service said they were “aware” of the latest leaks from Hunter Biden’s accounts, but were not in position to “make public comments on potential investigative actions,” in a statement to National Review.

At the time of the oil sale, the deal received little attention in the US, but since the strategic oil reserve in the US is currently at a historically low level, the public is starting to question such an unusual decision.

The Unipec contract is valued at $98,14 million, according to an April 21 US Department of Energy report. On July 8 the national average stood at 4,72 dollars a gallon for regular gasoline, while just a year ago it was 3,14 dollars.