Happy Nice Mall

HOUSTON — When President Biden meets with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, he will follow in the footsteps of presidents like Jimmy Carter, who flew to Tehran in 1977 to raise a New Year’s Eve toast with the Shah of Iran.

Like the prince, the shah was an unelected ruler with a tarnished human rights record. But Mr. Carter had to celebrate with him for a reason that greatly worried the people of his hometown: cheaper gasoline and safer sources of oil.

As Mr. Carter and other presidents have learned, Mr. Biden has a few valuable tools at the pump to keep costs down, especially when Russia, one of the world’s largest energy producers, launches an unwarranted war against a smaller neighbor. In Mr. Carter’s time, the oil resources needed by Western countries were threatened by the revolutions in the Middle East.

During the 2020 campaign, Mr. Biden pledged to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah” for the assassination of a prominent dissident, Jamal Khashoggi. But officials said last week that he plans to visit the kingdom this summer. This was the latest sign that oil was regaining its centrality in geopolitics.

Just a few years ago, many lawmakers in Washington and oil and gas executives in Texas were patting on the back for an energy boom that had made the United States a net exporter of oil and petroleum products and made it more energy independent. With prices soaring, this success now seems like a dream.

The United States is the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas, but accounts for only 12 percent of global oil supply. The price of oil, the main cost of gasoline, can still rise or fall depending on events in half the world. And no president, however powerful or competent, can do much to control him.

These facts are cold consolation for Americans who discover that a gas station stop can easily cost a hundred dollars more than a year ago. When fuel prices rise, consumers demand action and may turn against presidents who are unwilling or unable to bring them back.

Presidents who always look to the next election when their jobs or their party’s dominance of power are in jeopardy may find it impossible not to deceive or beg foreign and domestic oil producers to drill and pump more oil faster.

“A president has to try,” said Bill Richardson, the energy secretary in the Clinton administration. “Unfortunately, there are only bad options. And any alternative option is probably worse than asking the Saudis to increase production.”

Two other oil-producing countries that could increase production – Iran and Venezuela – are enemies of the US, which Western sanctions have largely cut off from the global market. It would be politically dangerous for Mr. Biden to reach any agreement with his leaders without making major concessions on issues such as nuclear enrichment and democratic reforms.

Energy experts said that even Saudi Arabia, which is considered to have the most spare generation capacity available for use, alone cannot bring prices down quickly. This is because Russian production is falling and it may fall further as European countries reduce their purchases from this country.

“Presidents may be the most powerful figure in the American government, but they cannot control the price of oil at the pump,” said Chase Untermeyer, the US ambassador to Qatar under George W. Bush. “Even if prices fall for reasons beyond his control, President Biden probably won’t get much credit for it.”

Some Republican lawmakers and oil executives have argued that Mr. Biden could do more to increase local oil and gas production by opening more federal land and water to oil drilling in places like Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. It could also ease arrangements for pipeline construction so Canadian producers can send more oil south.

But even these initiatives, which environmentalists and many Democrats oppose as delaying climate change efforts, will have little immediate impact because new oil wells take months to start production and pipelines can take years to build.

“Had management participated in every aspect of the industry’s wish list, it would have had a modest impact on prices today, as it would mostly be about production in the future,” said Jason Bordoff, director of Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy. He was an adviser to politics and President Barack Obama. “And it would come with significant downsides politically, socially and environmentally.”

Mr. Biden and his aides are clawing at US oil executives for pumping more oil with little success. Most oil companies are reluctant to increase production because they now fear that drilling more will lead to an abundance that will cause prices to drop. when do they remember oil prices fell below zero at the beginning of the pandemic. Big companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and Shell largely adhered to the investment budgets they set last year before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Energy traders were so convinced that supply would remain limited that US and global oil benchmark prices soared following news that Mr. Biden was planning a trip to Saudi Arabia. Oil prices rose to $120 a barrel on Friday, and the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline on Sunday was $4.85, up more than 20 cents from a week ago and more than $1.80 from a year ago, according to AAA.

Another seemingly stagnant effort by the Biden administration is its decision to release one million barrels a day of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Analysts said it’s difficult to discern any impact from these releases.

The Biden team is also in talks with Venezuela and Iran, but progress stalls.

The administration recently renewed a license that partially exempts Chevron from US sanctions aimed at crippling Venezuela’s oil industry. In March, three administration officials traveled to Caracas to lure President Nicolás Maduro into negotiations with the political opposition.

In another easing of sanctions, Spain’s Repsol and Italy’s Eni could start shipping small volumes of oil from Venezuela to Europe in a few weeks, Reuters reported on Sunday.

Once the largest exporter to the United States, Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves. But the oil industry has been so crippled that it may take months or even years for the country to significantly increase exports.

Mr. Biden is trying to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, from which President Donald J. Trump withdrew. A deal would give Iran the freedom to export more than 500,000 barrels of oil a day, alleviating the global supply shortage and compensating for some of the barrels Russia did not sell. Iran also has about 100 million barrels of storage that could potentially be quickly released.

But the nuclear negotiations appear to be mired in disagreements and are not expected to bear fruit any time soon.

Of course, any deal with Venezuela or Iran could become political obligations for Mr. Biden himself, as most Republicans and even some Democrats oppose reconciliation with the leaders of those countries.

“No president wants to remove the Iranian Revolutionary Guard from the terrorist list,” said Ben Cahill, an energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, about one of the key points in talks with Iran. “Presidents are wary of any move that appears to be making political sacrifices and bringing victory to America’s enemies.”

Foreign policy experts say that energy crises are inevitable during the war, but always surprise administrations that are often unprepared for the next crisis. Obama adviser Mr. Bordoff suggested that the country invest more in electric cars and trucks and encourage greater efficiency and protection for lower energy demand.

“The history of oil crises shows that when there is a crisis, politicians run around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to figure out what they can do to provide immediate help to consumers,” Bordoff said. He added that US leaders should better prepare the country “the next time there is an inevitable oil crisis.”