Can’t you guys ease up on the bad news?

Can the U.S. sell its (oil) stockpiles for half-price and cause the oil market to drop the price of oil?
— Troy M., Richmond, Ky.

Yes, it could. But the impact wouldn’t last very long — except for those buyers lucky enough to get in on the half-price sale.

Last week, Democrats in the House, lead by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tried to pass a bill to force the White House to sell 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or about 10 percent of the crude held in the national stockpile.

"The fastest way to help the consumer is to release the oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve," she said Thursday.

The White House, which had threatened to veto the measure, has been pushing Congress to open up more areas to oil drilling that are now off limits. Neither move would have any immediate impact on the price at the pump.

Drilling for more oil is a great idea, but even if oil companies got started drilling new fields today (and found oil there), it would be years before that oil came to market. And trying to flood the global oil market with oil from U.S. reserves tomorrow would only show up as a tiny blip on the market’s radar screen. A drawdown of 70 million barrels sounds like a lot of oil. But with global demand running at about 86 million barrels every day, that oil would be consumed in about 19 and a half hours.

Marking those barrels down to half-price might cut market prices for a few hours, but once it became clear the oil involved was a drop in the barrel, traders would bid prices back up again.

Moreover, giving a few lucky oil buyers a break wouldn’t guarantee that those savings would flow through to the pump. To do that, you’d have to limit how much the refiner could charge for gasoline made from that “cheap” oil, how much the wholesaler could charge the retailer, and how much the retailer could charge at the pump. And since those limits would apply only  to a tiny fraction of the gasoline as it moves through the pipeline, the impact on the gasoline market would be limited to the few lucky souls who pulled up to just in time to see that SPR special gas flow through the pump.

While Congress is debating “solutions” to higher pump prices, the market is enforcing its own solutions. High prices have forced consumers to cut back, which has taken some of the demand pressure off tight supplies. That has helped bring prices back down fairly significantly.

Prices at the pump have fallen to just over $4 a gallon on average and could be headed lower if drivers keep figuring out how to go further on less gas. With less demand for gas, there’s also less demand for oil, and crude prices have backed off as well. Last week, oil prices sank to $123 a barrel, the lowest point in weeks and 16 percent from the recent peak above $147 a barrel.

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