Chris Herb’s statement regarding home heating oil and gasoline prices. The price increase is being driven by Wall Street speculators. There is no supply issue!
For immediate release
contact Shelly Sindland for more information
shellysindland@ctema.com
860-992-9045
ChrisHerb is the President and CEO of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association (CEMA) CEMA is a trade organization which represents 600 local family owned heating oil/Bioheat® fuel retailers. Our motor fuels members own, operate, and distribute gasoline to 1,000 locations throughout Connecticut.
See his statement below.
The price increases we are seeing today at the pump, in home heating oil, and natural gas are totally man-made by speculators on Wall Street. There is no supply issue. Let me repeat, there is no disruption in supply because of the war in Ukraine.
Prices rise for two reasons. They rise either because there are supply interruptions, or they rise because commodity traders on Wall Street are fearful that there might be a supply interruption and they push the price up. It’s really that simple. Those are the two reasons why prices rise and right now, we are seeing a Wall Street driven increases based on fears of supply interruptions.
The prices people are experiencing at the pump are being caused by forces beyond the control of your local fuel dealer. We empathize with the pain that our consumers are experiencing and appreciate their understanding, but we want to continue to remind them why this price increase is happening. Prices are not a local issue – they are being set on Wall Street in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
We encourage President Biden to reconsider America’s federal energy policy and utilize all of the tools that we have available for domestic energy production. It was a mistake to end oil and natural gas leasing on federal lands and the Keystone XL pipeline.
This change in policy resulted in America shifting from a net exporter of oil to now having to rely on Russia and OPEC for oil. There is no environmental benefit to this policy, that has now put our energy security at risk.