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Business

These countries are joining the US in tapping their emergency oil reserves

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In a statement issued Tuesday, the White House said China, Japan, India, South Korea and the United Kingdom would join the initiative following weeks of discussions to formulate a plan to arrest price hikes.

The International Energy Agency, which monitors global oil supplies on behalf of the world’s leading economies, said it respected the decisions made by individual countries on “how best to respond to the specific challenges and circumstances they each face.”

“We recognise that the rise in oil prices is placing a burden on consumers and has added to inflationary pressures during a period when the economic recovery remains uneven and faces a range of risks,” the agency said in a statement.

The United States will release about 50 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, with the oil expected to hit markets in December. Here’s what we know so far about what other countries are doing:

India

India has agreed to release 5 million barrels, to be timed in agreement with the other five nations.

“India has repeatedly expressed concern at supply of oil being artificially adjusted below demand levels by oil producing countries, leading to rising prices and negative attendant consequences,” the Indian government said in a statement shortly after the White House announcement.

It said several Indian state governments had already taken “difficult steps” to cut local fuel taxes.

“Despite the high fiscal burden on the government, [they] were taken in order to provide relief to citizens,” it added.

South Korea

The South Korean government said in a statement that the amount and timing of its oil reserves release would be decided through consultation with the other countries, but said it was expected to be at a level “similar to previous international cooperation cases.”

During the Libyan crisis in 2011, when civil war disrupted global oil supplies by taking up to 1.8 million barrels a day offline, South Korea released nearly 3.5 million barrels or about 4% of the country’s oil reserves, it said.

“The South Korean government decided to participate in the US’s proposal to release oil reserve after taking into consideration of the need for international cooperation to recent sharp rise in international oil prices, the importance of the [South Korea]-US alliance, and the participation of major countries,” it said in a statement from its ministry of foreign affairs.

United Kingdom

The UK government said in a statement it will allow companies to “voluntarily release” oil reserves of up to 1.5 million barrels, in what it called “a sensible and measured step to support global markets as we emerge from the pandemic.”

“As we’ve said before, we will work closely with our international partners to do what we can to support the global economy through the transition following the pandemic,” a government spokesperson said.

China

The world’s second largest economy and biggest importer of oil told CNN on Friday it was working on a strategic oil release. A spokesperson for China’s National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration said China was “pushing forward with crude oil release-related work at the moment.”

The spokesperson declined to comment on whether the move was in response to a US request to work together to tackle the supply crunch.

CNN reported last month that China doesn’t release a lot of data about its oil reserves, but said in 2017 that it had established nine major reserve bases around the country, with a combined capacity of 37.7 million tons.

Japan

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday confirmed that Japan would release oil from its state reserves.

“We have been cooperating with the United States to stabilize the international oil market,” he told reporters, adding that the country would make the move in a way that does not run afoul of oil stockpiling laws.

Kishida said stabilizing crude oil prices is crucial to helping the economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic. He said more details about the timing and the amount of oil will be announced at a later time.

Japan had 388 million barrels of total strategic crude oil stocks as of June 2020, according to the US Energy Information Administration. It said about 76% of those were government stocks and about 24% were commercial.

The prospect of the United States, and other big energy consumers, releasing emergency barrels has already helped to deliver lower oil prices, at least in the short term. After topping $85 a barrel in late October, US oil prices have declined about 10%. That in turn has helped put a lid on surging gasoline prices.

The attempt at coordination follows a decision by OPEC+ to ignore calls to accelerate the pace at which the group is restoring supplies cut at the peak of the pandemic.

—CNN’s Beijing bureau, Manveena Suri, Emiko Jozuka, Junko Ogura and Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.

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World

EXCLUSIVE U.S. asks Japan, China, others to consider tapping oil reserves -sources

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An oil storage tank and crude oil pipeline equipment is seen during a tour by the Department of Energy at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Freeport, Texas, U.S. June 9, 2016. REUTERS/Richard Carson

WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (Reuters) – The Biden administration has asked some of the world’s largest oil consuming nations to consider releasing some crude reserves in a coordinated effort to lower prices, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Global oil benchmarks fell in post-close trading on the news. In late October, prices touched seven-year highs as oil demand has rebounded nearly to pre-pandemic levels, faster than the pace of supply.

President Joe Biden has faced political pressure over gasoline prices which have risen since his election in November 2020, a time when commuting and travel were drastically reduced during the pandemic. Government leaders in Japan and other consuming countries face similar pressures.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, have been adding 400,000 barrels per day to the market on a monthly basis but resisted Biden’s calls this month for steeper boosts. read more

In recent weeks, Biden and top aides have raised the issue with close allies including Japan, South Korea and India, as well as with China, the sources said. Tokyo responded positively to initial outreach, according to one of the sources.

One of the sources, asked why India was included in the batch of countries since it has only a small reserve, said: “We’re talking about the symbolism of the largest consumers of the world sending a message to OPEC that ‘you’ve got to change your behavior.'”

Several people familiar with the matter cautioned that such negotiations have not been finalized nor has any final decision been made about whether to pursue any specific course of action on oil prices.

The White House declined to comment on the detailed content of conversations with other countries. “No decisions have been made,” said a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council.

The White House has said for weeks that it is “talking with other energy consumers to ensure global energy supply and prices do not imperil the global economic recovery, the spokesperson added. “There is nothing to report beyond ongoing conversations and we consider a range of tools for if and when action is needed.”

The U.S. share of any potential release of reserves could be more than 20 to 30 million barrels, saying that much was needed to have an effect on markets, according to a U.S. source who participated in the discussions. The release could be in the form of a sale or a loan from the SPR – or both.

After Reuters reported on the White House discussions, U.S. crude was trading at $78.18 after closing at $78.36 a barrel, while Brent fell to $80.21 after ending at $80.28 a barrel. Prior to the news, both U.S. crude and global benchmark Brent notched their lowest settlement prices since early October, with Brent down 1.7% and U.S. crude down 3% for the day.

OPEC and allies have been wary of boosting output dramatically, concerned the rebound in demand could be fragile and additional supply could overwhelm markets.

“The surplus is already beginning in December,” OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said on Tuesday, when asked if he was sure there would be an excess in oil supply next year.

“These are signals that we have to be very, very careful,” he told reporters. read more

Rising oil prices have vexed Biden ahead of the 2022 midterm electionswhich will determine whether his Democratic party maintains its slim majorities in the U.S. Congress.

Several Biden aides attribute his falling public approval ratings in recent months to worsening inflation from energy to food and other areas. The consumer price index is up 6.2% over the last 12 months, with its energy components up 30%.

U.S. gasoline prices are $3.41 per gallon now, according to AAA, more than 60% higher than a year ago as the economy has rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency, an energy watchdog which includes some of the largest consumers of oil, including the United States, Japan, and numerous European nations, did not comment. The IEA in the past has coordinated releases involving several countries.

“The IEA monitors the oil market closely and stands ready to act as necessary,” it said in a statement.

Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Jarrett Renshaw and Tim Gardner; Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici and Noah Browning; Editing by David Gaffen, Heather Timmons and David Gregorio

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Technology

Apex Legend’s Big ‘Strafe Tapping’ Controversy, Explained

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Screenshot: EA

Apex Legends, the battle royale movement shooter developed by Repsawn Entertainment, is no stranger to controversy. Because Apex supports crossplay, PC and Console players have been beefing for a while over the slight differences and advantages each side gets from their platform of choice. All of this set the stage for online outcry after the recent announcement that tap strafing, a PC-exclusive movement technique, would be removed from the game.

Apex Legends, as a direct descendant of Titanfall 2, prioritizes movement fluidity, chaining jumps, sprints, and slides to turn the battlefield into a canvas for expressive speed and grace. The amount of technique required makes them incredibly difficult to play at first. Entering a match of Apex Legends as a movement shooter newbie is…one hell of an experience. While you stumble around looking for anything to defend yourself with, your opponents will rocket around you, bouncing off of shit and grabbing everything within a thirty meter radius of their landing point in seconds. They will then shoot you to death.

One of the game’s higher level techniques that makes such domination possible is, or was, known as tap strafing. Tap strafing allows someone to jump into the air, and perform a full 180 while maintaining their jump momentum before hitting the ground. It combines a bunch of different movement abilities together with some unique quirks of the Source engine to create some truly wild shit. It is also only possible on PC, which is why it was taken out as of late August.

I’ll break it down into its component parts. First, it requires you to be able to bunnyhop. Bunnyhopping is the process of jumping the same frame your character makes contact with the ground in order to maintain momentum and quickly displace your hitbox making you harder to hit. Bunnyhopping is possible, but difficult on controllers because it has some pretty tight timing. It is much easier on PC, where you can bind “jump” to your scroll wheel allowing you to input dozens of jump inputs every second. It is a pretty common strategy in basically every first-person shooter.

There’s an advanced version of this technique known as strafe jumping. Moving diagonally in a video game is faster than moving forward because that’s how triangles work. You’re moving the same forward distance in the same amount of time, with added movement to the side. You can then combine this with bunnyhopping. Once you’re bunnyhopping while strafing, you can quickly move the mouse to the direction you’re strafing in to convert your sideways velocity into forward motion. This allows you to move incredibly quickly, albeit with a slight curve.

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Tap strafing built upon this technique with a quirk of the Source engine. The Source engine checks for player direction and momentum every time the forward movement key is pressed. So if you were to tap forward while facing a different direction mid-jump, you could change the direction you’re going in. You could do this by literally tapping the forward movement key, or you could just do the bunnyhopping trick again and bind forward motion to your scroll wheel. Doing this allows you to radically change your direction in the air, which lets you move in some incredibly wild ways.

This movement technique is only possible on a mouse and keyboard, which gives PC players a huge advantage in a crossplay game like Apex Legends. Respawn has been trying to get its PC and console communities to play nice for a while, and it has not been going well. The removal of tap strafing is its most recent attempt to level the playing field.

While this particular situation is unsurprising given Apex’s history, it does highlight the difficulties developers will continue to face as crossplay becomes increasingly common throughout the medium. Having to balance not only weapon and character variety, but for hardware differences, presents an incredible challenge going forward.



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