Underlying US anxieties about inadequate short-term oil supply is the end of an era of cheap and fast supply growth from the country’s own shale patch.

Investors have refused to sanction the kind of debt-fuelled drilling binge that, in previous years, saw US supply increases cut into Opec’s market share. The Biden administration also initially sought to limit more fracking and drilling on federal lands. Meanwhile, its oil releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve have left the stockpile at its lowest level since 1984.