title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: The 2012–13 season saw the Hoyas as the top overall seed in the Big East tournament based on a tiebreaker, but lost in the semifinals. Georgetown received a bid as a No. 2 seed in the South bracket in the NCAA tournament, facing tournament newcomer Florida Gulf Coast University in the second round. Georgetown lost to the 15th-seeded Eagles 78–68, the seventh number two seed to lose to a 15 seed. It was the fourth consecutive season the Hoyas were eliminated by a double-digit seed in the NCAA tournament.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: The 2013–14 season was the team's first after Georgetown and six other schools left the original Big East Conference and joined Butler, Creighton, and Xavier in forming the new Big East Conference – part of a major conference realignment in which several other teams moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference from the old Big East and the old Big East became the American Athletic Conference. Like the previous year, the 2013–14 season started abroad, with the Hoyas playing in the Armed Forces Classic at Camp Humphreys near Pyeongtaek, South Korea. After a 17–13 regular-season record followed by an upset in the first round of the Big East tournament at the hands of last-place DePaul, the team received a No. 4 seed in the NIT, losing in the second round to top-seeded Florida State.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: In 2014–15, the Hoyas rebounded from their previous season's performance. Ranked as high as No. 21 at times, they completed the regular season with a 20–7 record and a second-place finish in the Big East, and advanced to the semifinals of the Big East tournament before losing to Xavier. Ranked No. 22 in the country, they received a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament, but lost to Utah in the third round.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: The Hoyas under Thompson III struggled for the next two years. They began their 2015–16 season with a four-game exhibition trip to Italy and Switzerland, and early in the regular season defeated No. 14 Syracuse, but then staggered to a 15–18 finish. They failed to receive an invitation to either the NCAA tournament or the NIT for the first time since 2004 and only the second time since 1974.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: During the 2016–17 season, Georgetown defeated three ranked teams—No. 13 Oregon, No. 16 Creighton, and No. 11 Butler—as well as their former Big East rivals Syracuse and Connecticut, but they finished ninth in the Big East with a 5–13 conference record—the most losses they had ever suffered in a season in either version of the Big East Conference—and lost to St. John's in the first round of the 2017 Big East tournament to finish 14–18. They missed both the NCAA tournament and the NIT for the second straight year, the first time they had missed the postseason in back-to-back seasons since 1974, and Thompson became the first Georgetown head coach to preside over consecutive losing seasons since John "Jack" Magee in 1970-71 and 1971-72. On March 23, 2017, Georgetown officials announced that Thompson had been fired.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: On April 3, 2017, Georgetown University announced that it had hired Patrick Ewing, the school's most decorated player, as its head coach. In his four years as a player at Georgetown, Ewing led the Hoyas to three Big East championships, three Final Fours, and the 1984 National Championship. Prior to taking over as the program's head coach, Ewing had spent the previous thirteen years as an assistant coach in the NBA, working for four different franchises under the tutelage of coaches such as Jeff Van Gundy, Stan Van Gundy, and Steve Clifford.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: In 2017–18, Georgetown finished with a 15–15 record and 5–13 in the Big East. The Hoyas won the first eight games of Ewing's tenure, and finished their non-conference schedule with a 10–1 record, but struggled in conference play. The season ended with a 77–88 loss to St. John's in the first round of the Big East tournament. The team did not participate in any postseason tournament.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: In Ewing's second season, the 2018–19 team finished 19–12 and 9–9 in the Big East, in a four-way tie for third place in the conference, their highest finish since 2015. Signature wins included an 85–73 win against No. 17 Villanova, the defending national champions, and an 86–84 win at No. 16 Marquette on the final day of the regular season, denying the Golden Eagles a share of the conference title. At the conclusion of the conference schedule, Jesse Govan was named First Team All-Big East, James Akinjo was named Big East Freshman of the Year, and Mac McClung and Josh LeBlanc were named to the All-Big East Freshman Team. The Hoyas lost their first game in the 2019 Big East tournament to Seton Hall 57–73. They were selected to play in the 2019 NIT, their first postseason appearance since 2015, but dropped their first-round game 68–71 to Harvard.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: The following season the 2019–20 Hoyas finished 15–17 and 5–13 in the Big East. In November, the team participated in the Empire Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York City where they beat No. 22 Texas 82–66, and moved to the final to face No. 1 Duke. Despite having a double digit lead in the first half vs Duke, the Hoyas ultimately fell 73–81. On December 2, 2020, Ewing announced that James Akinjo and Josh LeBlanc would transfer. Just over a week later, two more players in Galen Alexander and Myron Gardner, announced their intentions to transfer as well, leaving the Hoyas with only 9 scholarship players. In conference, wins over No. 19 Butler and No. 25 Creighton were highlights, but injuries and a thin roster saw the Hoyas lose their final 7 games, including a 62–75 loss in the opening round of the 2020 Big East tournament to St. John's. All postseason tournaments were subsequently cancelled due to COVID-19.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: The 2020–21 Hoyas finished the season 10–13 and 7–9 in the Big East. Before the season started, leading scorer Mac McClung announced his decision to transfer to Texas Tech. With the early departure of Omer Yurtseven, and the four midseason transfers from the prior year, the 2020–21 Hoyas consisted of eight new players (five freshmen and three transfers). Because of COVID-19 protocols, the team played all of its home games on campus at McDonough Arena without fans. After a 69–74 loss at Syracuse, the team went on a 21-day pause due to COVID-19 protocols. After the hiatus, the team returned to win six of its next ten games, including a 86–79 win at No. 15 Creighton. The Hoyas 7–9 record led to an 8th-place finish in the conference. At the 2021 Big East tournament, the team won its first tournament game under Ewing, with a 68–49 victory over Marquette in the opening round, then followed that up with wins against top-seeded Villanova and Seton Hall, sending them to the title game where they defeated Creighton 73–48 for their first title since 2007, and the eighth in school history, extending their own conference record. The Hoyas earned a 12 seed in the NCAA tournament, where they lost their opening round game to Colorado 73–96.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: During the 2021-22 season, Ewing led the Hoyas to their worst Big East season ever. Georgetown lost all 19 Big East games they played that season.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: The Hoyas have made 31 appearances in the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. They have a record of 47–30.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: Georgetown's biggest rival is Syracuse. The two schools have been playing each other since 1930, but their rivalry was solidified in the 1980s as the respective programs were the leading powers during the infancy of the newly formed Big East conference. In 1980, the first season of new conference, Georgetown famously ended Syracuse's 57-game home winning streak in the final game to played at Manley Field House before moving to the Carrier Dome. After the win, Georgetown coach John Thompson declared, "Manley Field House is officially closed". Weeks later, the two schools met in the inaugural Big East Championship, with Georgetown prevailing 87–81. The teams met in four Big East tournament championship games during the 1980s, with Georgetown winning all four contests.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: The animosity between the programs was further extended when Syracuse announced their decision to leave the Big East effective in 2013 to join the ACC, forcing the split of "Catholic Seven" and the football-playing schools. This led to the creation of the reformed Big East Conference and the American Athletic Conference. However, Georgetown and Syracuse have continued to play each other in all but one of the years following their exit from the conference. The rivalry is currently renewed through the 2022–23 season.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: As a fellow Catholic institution and conference foe, Villanova has been a natural rival for the Hoyas for many years. The schools are arguably two of the most successful programs among the group of teams that currently make up the Big East Conference. The rivalry is best known for the 1985 NCAA Championship Game where No. 8-seeded Villanova shocked the highly favored and top-ranked Hoyas 66–64, preventing Georgetown from winning back-to-back titles.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: Among current Big East Conference foes, Villanova has the most Final Four appearances (6) in the Big East.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: Having first played each other in 1909, St. John's is one of Georgetown's oldest rivals. The two teams played off and on since that first contest until 1965, when they began annually scheduled games, and they only intensified when both programs became founding members of the Big East Conference in 1979. The rivalry was brought to national attention during the 1984-85 NCAA Division I men's basketball season when both programs were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 throughout the season and met on a total of four occasions, including the famous "Sweater Game" at Madison Square Garden, the 1985 Big East Championship, and the 1985 Final Four. The Hoyas won 3 of the 4 matchups that year.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: The rivalry gained renewed interest when both schools remained in the new Big East Conference following the many iterations of conference alignment.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: An original member of the Big East, UConn and Georgetown battled for conference supremacy for multiple decades, until UConn left the conference to join the American Athletic Conference in 2013. One of the most intense periods for the rivalry was the 1995-1996 season where both teams found themselves ranked in the Top 5 throughout most of the year, led by stars Allen Iverson and Ray Allen respectively. During the regular season, Georgetown upset then ranked No. 3 UConn in Washington DC, but a few weeks later at Madison Square Garden, UConn prevailed in a classic Big East tournament Final 75–74, on a last second shot by Allen.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: UConn is the only team to match Georgetown's record of 10 Regular Season titles and is second behind the Hoyas in total conference tournament titles. The schools continued to play each other in their non-conference schedule, and have renewed their rivalry now that UConn has returned to the league in 2020.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: Georgetown's official colors are blue and gray. The colors were selected in 1876 by the Georgetown College Boat Club (the original crew team) in honor of Georgetown students and alumni who wore the Union blue and Confederate gray in the Civil War. A student committee declared blue and gray "as appropriate colors for the Boat Club and expressive of the feeling of unity between the Northern and Southern boys of the College", and recommended its adoption for the team. By the time the men's varsity basketball team was formed, the blue and gray colors were already widely adopted by the school.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: Presently, Georgetown is one of the few teams to wear gray as their primary home uniform color, as traditionally teams wear white uniforms at home (though the Hoyas do have a white alternate jersey that is worn on occasion). Fans are generally encouraged to wear gray to home games, and sellouts are referred to as a "gray out."


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: Each summer Georgetown University's McDonough Gymnasium hosts the Kenner League. Named after one of the founders and first director of the Metropolitan Police Boys' and Girls' Club of Washington DC, the Kenner league is the only NCAA sanctioned summer league in Washington DC. Formed in 1982, the league allows Georgetown players to continue their development in an NCAA-structured environment, and to stay within view of watchful eyes on a college campus (even if the coaches were not allowed there by NCAA rules). From its humble beginnings, the Kenner legacy continued to build throughout the 1980s, with coverage in "The Washington Post" beginning around 1986, then a high school bracket following soon thereafter, and ultimately the arrival of "senior" teams featuring a mix of former Georgetown players, visiting NBA stars, and local hoop legends.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: Kenner continued to grow, with more fans making the trip weekly to the gymnasium for a series of weeknight and weekend games each summer. As new recruits arrived at Georgetown, following them at the Kenner League became a priority for fans. Many fans might think Georgetown runs the Kenner League, but it does not. The league is an independent effort, whose organizers must raise money from Nike and team sponsors to cover the cost of officials, jerseys, and other organizational costs, and maintain NCAA certification. As summer leagues go, Kenner is among the longest running of its kind. Since the league has been in existence, nearly 200 Georgetown players have played in the Kenner League. After nearly a two year break due to COVID-19, Kenner League returned in the summer of 2022.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: The Hoyas have an excellent history of preparing players for the NBA. Two Hoyas were the NBA first overall draft picks: Patrick Ewing in 1985 and Allen Iverson in 1996. Alonzo Mourning was the second overall pick in the 1992 draft. Dikembe Mutombo also was drafted in the first round, 4th overall Other alumni have gone undrafted, but entered the NBA later, such as Jaren Jackson in 1989 and Henry Sims and Chris Wright in 2013.


title: Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball

text: Several Hoya basketball players are famous purely for their off-court accomplishments. Brendan Gaughan, who walked onto the basketball squad, is a driver in NASCAR's Truck Series and also raced one season in the Cup Series. James L. Jones, who played for the Hoyas in the mid-1960s before joining the Marine Corps, went on to become Commandant of the Marine Corps, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and President Obama's National Security Advisor. Paul Tagliabue, who played in the early 1960s and was one of the leading rebounders in school history, became Commissioner of the National Football League from 1989 to 2006 and later served as Georgetown's Chairman of the board of directors. Henry Hyde, who led Georgetown to its first national final, was elected a member of Congress from Illinois and Chairman of House Judiciary Committee. He received the nation's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom. William Shea, who played in the 1920s, was the New York attorney who brought the New York Mets to the city. Shea Stadium, now demolished and replaced on-site by the Mets' current home of Citi Field, was named in his honor.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: General elections were held in Peru on 11 April 2021. The presidential election, which determined the president and the vice presidents, required a run-off between the two top candidates, which was held on 6 June. The congressional elections determined the composition of the Congress of Peru, with all 130 seats contested.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Pedro Castillo, a member of the left-wing Free Peru party, received the most votes in the first round. In the second round he faced Keiko Fujimori, the leader of the right-wing Popular Force who had previously lost the run-offs of the 2011 and the 2016 elections. Both candidates were surprise contenders; Fujimori had initially been discounted due to her party's negative public appeal in Congress and her preventive imprisonment for a year, while Castillo was a political newcomer who was previously unknown to the public.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The official count of the second round by the National Office of Electoral Processes indicated that Castillo had won with 50.13% of the vote, a lead of 44,263 over Fujimori. However, the declaration of an official outcome certifying the result by the National Jury of Elections was delayed following accusations of electoral fraud by opposition politicians. Castillo was eventually named president-elect by the National Jury of Elections on 19 July, and was inaugurated on 28 July. However, the opposition gained control of Congress.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The President is elected using the two-round system. The first round voting was held on 11 April and allows eligible voters to vote for any viable presidential candidate. The top two candidates who receive a plurality of the vote proceed to the run-off election, which took place on 6 June. The winner of the run-off election and the presidential election is the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote. However, if in the first round the candidate who is in the first place already gets more than 50% of the popular vote, that candidate will automatically win the election and a run-off election will no longer be needed.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The 130 members of Congress are elected in 27 multi-member constituencies using open list proportional representation. To enter Congress, parties must either cross the 5% electoral threshold at the national level, or win at least seven seats in one constituency. Seats are allocated using the D'Hondt method.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: President Martín Vizcarra initially presented legislation that would set the conditions for a snap election in 2020. If successful, Vizcarra would not be eligible for re-election. The 2020 proposed Peruvian general election would be held on 11 April 2020, to elect a new President of the Republic of Peru, along with 130 congressmen of the Congress of Peru. It was eventually decided to be held on 26 January 2020. Opposition lawmakers condemned Vizcarra's proposal, defending the practice of five-year terms. This constitutional reform was rejected.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The 2021 Peruvian general election were held on 11 April 2021, to elect the president of the Republic of Peru, two vice presidents of the same party, 130 congressmen of the Congress of Peru and 5 Andean parliamentarians for a five-year term from 2021 to 2026.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: On 11 April 130 congressmen were elected in 27 electoral districts, corresponding to the 24 departments, the Province of Lima, the Constitutional Province of Callao and residents living abroad.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The elected congressmen will be sworn in and assume office no later than 27 July 2021; the constitutional president of the Republic and his elected vice presidents will do so on 28 July 2021.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Multiple candidates called for constitutional reform or an entirely new Constitution of Peru to reduce corruption and to bring more prosperity to Peru. Constitutional changes in Peru are overseen by the Congress of Peru. To hold a constitutional referendum, a majority vote from congress is required to approve the election. All proposed constitutional reforms would also have to be approved by congress. Following the first round elections and the divided legislators from numerous different parties voted into Congress, chances of candidates changing the constitution were limited.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Corruption in Peru has been pervasive and was recently brought to attention during the Odebrecht scandal, which involved Odebrecht paying politicians to receive contracts for public works projects. In 2019, BBC News wrote that "Peru is perhaps where [Odebrecht] has caused the most severe crisis" and that "[t]he scandal has discredited virtually the entire political elite of the country, as all major parties and players have been implicated." The Odebrecht scandal led to several incidents in Peruvian politics; the suicide of former president Alan García, the order for the arrest of former president Alejandro Toledo as well as the first impeachment process against Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and his resignation from the presidency. Two candidates in the 2021 elections, Keiko Fujimori and Julio Guzmán, were also under investigation regarding alleged bribes from Odebrecht during their earlier electoral campaigns. Kuczynski's successor Martín Vizcarra reacted to the Odebrecht scandal with multiple anti-corruption initiatives, although the removal of Vizcarra was controversial for his own alleged involvement in corruption and was replaced with President of Congress Manuel Merino. Vizcarra's removal was very unfavorable with Peruvians and resulted with the 2020 Peruvian protests. Merino would be president for only five days and would later be replaced by Francisco Sagasti following a vote from congress.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Pedro Castillo proposed to elect a constituent assembly to replace the 1993 constitution from Alberto Fujimori's regime, with Castillo saying "it serves to defend corruption at macro scale" and that he would respect the rule of law by calling for a constitutional referendum to determine whether a constituent assembly should be formed or not. Castillo also proposed judges and justices of the Constitutional Tribunal to be publicly elected.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Verónika Mendoza embraced calls for a new constitution instead of amendments, stating: "Our current national institutional framework, enshrined in the Constitution, establishes that education, health care, and housing are for-profit enterprises, and that life itself is a commodity to be bought and sold. What this means is that political power is concentrated in the hands of those with money, and not with the Peruvian people."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: George Forsyth, the initial frontrunner in the campaign, benefitted from his celebrity fame and not being involved with the traditional political parties being investigated for corruption. Forsyth called for constitutional amendments instead of a new constitution, supporting an amendment that would declare corruption a crime against humanity. One of the few candidates to support the existing constitution was Keiko Fujimori, who has stated that she would keep the 1993 constitution of her father Alberto Fujimori in place, instead advocating for the use of a "heavy hand" if elected president, stating: "Democracy cannot be weak. It must be supported by a solid principle of authority."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Peru is one of the worst-affected nations in the world from the COVID-19 pandemic, with at least 0.5% of the total population and nearly 1% of Lima dying leading up to the election. The crisis became so intense by January 2021 due to a second wave of infections that ICU bed occupancy in Peru rose to 90%, with medical workers beginning to participate in strikes due to their harsh work conditions. Due to the intensity of the pandemic, the election became less of a priority for voters and many remained undecided or refused to vote outright.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Forsyth criticized the COVID-19 lockdowns of the Peruvian government, saying that they caused economic distress and that the National Emergency Operations Center (COEN) should be activated for a civil-military partnership to combat further infection. Mendoza was also critical of how lockdowns were initiated, saying that the government should provide support for families affected by lockdowns, promoted a partnership with Argentina to acquire the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and denounced the potential commercialization of the COVID-19 vaccine in Peru.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: On 24 February 2021, following an approach to advise Francisco Sagasti on the COVID-19 pandemic management in Peru, Hernando de Soto announced the first shadow cabinet in Peruvian history. Mainly composed of his campaign technical team, the main purpose of the opposition cabinet is to offer an alternative for the government to concur and apply De Soto's proposals during the crisis.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peru's gross domestic product fell 30.2 percent in the second quarter of 2020, the largest decline of all major economies, with many small service businesses that represent the majority of businesses of Peru's economy going bankrupt during the crisis. Medical experts commented that the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak in Peru can be explained at least in part due to existing socioeconomic circumstances; nearly one-third of Peruvians lived in overcrowded homes, 72% had informal jobs requiring daily work and many needed to travel daily to markets to purchase food since only 49% of households own refrigerators or freezers; even in urban areas it is only 61%.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Political scientist Paula Muñoz of the Universidad del Pacífico described Forsyth as "a pro-business guy", while "Americas Quarterly" wrote "his views on big economic issues are less clear." Forsyth and Fujimori both shared his support for the privatization of public utilities and the deregulation of the economy, with the two saying that government intervention hinders growth. Fujimori also stated that she wanted to make "the State the main partner of entrepreneurs." In contrast, Mendoza criticized the neoliberal policies instituted in Peru since the 1990s, demanded "the decommodification of goods like health, education, and housing", and promoted the government funding of sustainable agricultural and energy projects, all while protecting the environment.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: As a result of the Venezuelan refugee crisis, Peru was home to over one million Venezuelans in February 2021. At that time, the Peruvian Armed Forces were deployed in a joint operation with Ecuadorian counterparts to the Ecuador-Peru border to prevent the entry of illegal migrants, with the armed forces stating that it was to prevent further introduction of COVID-19 in Peru. Human rights organizations criticized the militarization of the border, saying that they are not properly trained for border enforcement and that it violates the human rights of migrants. Xenophobia towards Venezuelans in Peru has also increased, as some politicians have blamed increased crime on the migrants, although the Brookings Institution and Migration Policy Institute found that Venezuelan participate in less crime in Peru than native Peruvians.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: On the immigration topic, George Forsyth's responses varied; he stated that "Peru is a generous country that opens its doors to foreigners" while he also supported deploying more authorities to control the border, stating that migrants "have humiliated our National Police" and "We need the principle of authority in the country. ... We need an empowered police to defend all of us Peruvians." Regarding her position on immigration, Mendoza stated: "Migration must be considered on humanitarian criteria. Peruvians have also migrated." Although some controls should be instituted to prevent criminals from entering, she promoted migrants as "people who can contribute to the country." Keiko Fujimori supported increased border security, promoting the use of police and the Peruvian Armed Forces for guarding the border.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Leftist candidate Pedro Castillo called on Maduro to take Venezuelan refugees back to their native country, saying that Venezuelans arrived in Peru "to commit crimes." Castillo described the Venezuelan refugee crisis as an issue of "human trafficking", and said that he would give Venezuelans who commit crimes seventy-two hours to leave Peru.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Comrade Vilma, with close ties to Comrade José, head of the Militarized Communist Party of Peru (MPCP), a communist organization that split from Shining Path at least ten years before the San Miguel del Ene attack, called for a boycott of elections on 14 May. During the second round of elections, Vilma called on voters not to vote for Fujimori, stating that anyone who voted for her would be the "accomplice of genociders and the corrupt."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: On 23 May, a mass killing of eighteen people occurred in San Miguel del Ene, a rural area in the Vizcatán del Ene District of Satipo Province. Along with the corpses, some of which were burned, leaflets signed by the MPCP were found, featuring the hammer and sickle and defining the attack as a social cleansing operation. The leaflets also called for a boycott of the 6 June elections and accused those who voted for Keiko Fujimori and her Popular Force party of treason. The military quickly accused Shining Path of the attack, although they were allegedly referring to the MCPC. However, no formal investigation had been performed before the links to Shining Path were claimed. OjoPúblico described the media release by the military as "an inaccurate reference to the Shining Path."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The attack and subsequent media coverage would provide increased support for Fujimori, whose rhetoric aligned Castillo with armed communists. The Fujimori campaign used the attack as a springboard for support, pointing to alleged ties between MOVADEF, a Shining Path political group, and Castillo, attempting to align him to the attack. Fujimori expressed condemnation against the attack during a press conference in Tarapoto as well as regret that "bloody acts" still happened in the country and her condolences to the relatives of the victims. Pedro Castillo also condemned the killings during a rally in Huánuco, expressing solidarity towards the relatives of the victims and also urging the National Police to investigate the attack to clarify the events. Vladimir Cerrón, Secretary General of Free Peru, stated that "the right-wing needed [Shining] Path to win"; Cerrón deleted the tweet moments later while condemning any act of terrorism. Prime Minister Nuria Esparch, who held the position of the Ministry of Defense, condemned the attack and guaranteed that the electoral process would take place normally.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Political parties in Peru have been controlled by individuals seeking their own benefits, usually financial compensation. According to "The Economist", political graft was the largest challenge facing Peru instead of the ideological battles in the press. Due to the large divisions of parties in congress, with over eleven parties elected into the Congress of Peru, whoever was elected into the presidency was expected to be weak due to the fractured congress. Political analyst Giovanna Peñaflor agreed with the theory of a weak presidency, saying that the fragmented congress would leave the executive vulnerable to legislators.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: When discussing the state of party politics during the election, especially among congress, political scientist Adriana Urrutia said: "Political parties are no longer a vehicle for representation of the citizenry." Urrutia explained that traditional parties are known among Peruvians to represent groups related to corruption in Peru, including lucrative private universities, illegal logging, and illegal mining, among others.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The election also saw the emergence of many far-right candidates. Regarding the first round of presidential elections, Javier Puente, assistant professor of Latin American Studies at Smith College in the North American Congress on Latin America wrote: "With a baffling number of candidates – 18 in total – the 2021 presidential ballot included convicted felons, presumed money launderers, xenophobes, a fascist billionaire, an overrated and outdated economist, a retired mediocre footballer, a person accused of murdering a journalist, and other colorful figures. The vast majority of candidates represented the continuation of the neoliberal economic model that has been responsible for decades of meager financial performance and unequal growth." Puente stated that only three leftist candidates proposed alternatives to the neoliberal politicians (Veronika Mendoza, Marco Arana, and Pedro Castillo), describing Castillo as "far from being a 'comrade' who will champion leftist demands, Castillo is the new face of an anti-system impulse. ... Only in a neoliberal system that outcasts any form of market dissent as radical would a figure like Castillo acquire a role as a leftist."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: In democratic elections since 1919, eleven of eighteen presidents of Peru were from Lima, even as many Peruvians in rural areas were not able to vote until 1979 when the constitution allowed illiterate individuals to vote. As globalization intensified through the twentieth century, distances between urban and rural areas increased, with larger cities increasing their ability to connect to the economy and increasing their wealth while smaller cities experienced resource and human capital flight to larger cities. Although economic statistics show improved economic data in Peru in recent decades, the wealth earned between 1990 and 2020 was not distributed throughout the country; living standards showed disparities between the more-developed capital city of Lima and similar coastal regions while rural provinces remained impoverished. The COVID-19 pandemic exasperated these disparities even further, with rural Peruvians feeling a sense of abandonment by the government as trade and trans-regional travel were prohibited, fueling increased distrust and autonomy among interior regions of the nation. Kahhat stated that "market reforms in Peru have yielded positive results in terms of reducing poverty ... But what the pandemic has laid bare, particularly in Peru, is that poverty was reduced while leaving the miserable state of public services unalteredmost clearly in the case of health services."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The success of Castillo in the first round induced panic among businesses, media entities and some intellectuals belonging to Peru's elite class. Leading to the election, opinion polls showed Peruvians with higher income favored Keiko while those with a lower income supported Castillo, with the latter demographic representing a larger portion of voters. This divide was further exacerbated following the election according to the "New York Times", especially as Fujimori grew closer to Peru's elite and European classes. Castillo's candidacy brought attention to this divide with much of his support being earned in the exterior portions of the country. In May 2021, "Americas Quarterly" wrote: "Life expectancy in Huancavelica, for example, the region where Castillo received his highest share of the vote in the first round, is seven years shorter than in Lima. In Puno, where Castillo received over 47% of the vote, the infant mortality rate is almost three times that of Lima's."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: According to historian José Ragas of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, although Castillo was accused of being linked to communist terrorism, "in places where terrorism caused the most bloodshed, Castillo won by a lot." The separation of Lima and rural Peru also led to the underestimation of Castillo's performance in first-round elections. Castillo received a majority vote in all but one of Peru's mining provinces, with researcher Hugo Ñopo of the Lima-based GRADE stating: "The regions that provide those minerals that make Peru rich do not improve the living standards of the local communities, ... Many people perceive that the winners of these three decades are not them, but are the people in Lima and the big cities." Sociologist Maritza Paredes of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru shared similar thoughts, saying: "People see that all the natural resources are in the countryside but all the benefits are concentrated in Lima." In contrast, Fujimori received support from Lima's elite, according to Kahhat. Kahhat said that evangelical Christians, businesses, media organizations, and the armed forces supported Fujimori.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Castillo's supporters considered his campaign a historical moment and sparked political enthusiasm that had not been observed in Peru for many decades. When entering the second round, Castillo was seen as a real change to begin a new historical cycle in Peru as he spent most of his career outside of Lima and was of rural origin, with tens of thousands of people defying COVID-19 restrictions to rally for Castillo in Cusco, Puno and other outlying provinces. In contrast, Fujimori's supporters saw her as a candidate that would prevent change from occurring in Peru. The existing disparities in Peru caused a "globalization fatigue" according to Asensio, resulting in a polarization between rural and urban areas that saw differing priorities with lifestyle, economics and politics. These sentiments were especially apparent during the second round of elections when establishment politicians from urban areas characterized and criminalized the lifestyles of rural Peruvians who felt that neoliberalism damaged their economic, social and cultural conditions. Asensio writes that Castillo, being recognized as a "true Peruvian" by his supporters, was able to capitalize on the "globalization fatigue" sentiments shared by the rural population and establish support by saying he would reverse the favoritism of Lima and defending regional rights.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Fujimori's response to Castillo's victory was to portray her movement as defending democracy and assumed a nationalist image, adopting the Peru national football team uniform and colors during rallies. This intensified political polarization between urban and rural Peruvians, portraying rich, white individuals as democratic while identifying indigenous poor individuals as communists.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Due to the internal conflict in Peru involving far-left guerrilla groups attacking Peru's institutions which mainly occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, sentiments towards left-wing political parties have a negative stigma skewed against them. While campaigning occurred during the elections, right-wing politicians would often baselessly characterize left-wing politicians as terrorists, or "terrucos" in Peruvian Spanish, with the attacks being so common that they were given the term "terruqueo." Billboards in support of Fujimori during the second round disseminated a message framing the election as being between "freedom and dictatorship" and "democracy and communism".


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The "Americas Quarterly" argues that such behavior resulted with less support for the leftist candidate Verónika Mendoza and promoted political polarization within Peru. With the ongoing political crisis that saw in the span of two years the dissolution of the Congress of Peru and the removal of three presidents (Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Martín Vizcarra, and Manuel Merino), concerns were raised among analysts about the increased political polarization's relationship with Peru's democratic stability. Lead researcher of pollster Institute of Peruvian Studies, Patricia Zárate, stated: "I think the scenario that's coming is really frightening."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: As the second round of elections approached, Fujimori's campaign used fearmongering tactics to gain support of the middle and upper classes in Lima, accusing Castillo of attempting to institute communism in Peru and to follow the path of Hugo Chávez and Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. Some scholars have recognized the similarities of Fujimori and Castillo; both are cultural conservatives opposing same-sex marriage and abortion, as campaigning for the second round of elections began. Olga González, associate dean of the Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship at Macalester College, stated that the situation is more complex than "binaries" between social classes, although she acknowledged that such dichotomies "speak to how polarized the country is."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: With the support of Mario Vargas Llosa and his son Álvaro Vargas Llosa's neoliberal Fundación International para la Libertad (FIL), Fujimori attempted to reshape her image as being more democratic. Vargas Llosa ran and lost against Alberto Fujimori in Peru's 1990 elections, and had previously criticized Fujimori, making statements such as "the worst option is that of Keiko Fujimori because it means the legitimation of one of the worst dictatorships that Peru has had in its history" and that "Keiko is the daughter of a murderer and a thief who is imprisoned, tried by civil courts with international observers, sentenced to 25 years in prison for murder and theft. I do not want her to win the elections."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: During the intense periods of internal conflict in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s, the government, military, and media in Peru described any individual who was left on the political spectrum as being a threat to the nation, with many students, professors, union members, and peasants being jailed or killed for their political beliefs. The right-wing elite, business groups and the majority of media organizations in Peru collaborated with Fujimori's campaign by appealing to fear when discussing political opponents. Some Peruvian broadcast television channels openly supported Fujimori's candidacy as well. Reuters wrote that "El Comercio", one of the largest media organizations in South America, "has generally backed Fujimori".


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: For the first round of elections, Peruvian media focused attacks against Veronika Mendoza, a center-left candidate who opposed the governments of Cuba and Venezuela. The media's attacks resulted support moving from Mendoza to Pedro Castillo, who was further left on the political spectrum.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: In the second round of elections, Peru's major media networks were accused of aligning with Fujimori to discredit Castillo. Some news media allegedly disseminated fake news against Castillo. "Le Monde diplomatique" wrote, "The privately owned media torpedoed Castillo incessantly with fake news, and not without rattling the Shining Path scarecrow". International media also stated that Peruvian news organizations polished Fujimori's image and praised her, as well as assisting her media campaign tactic which included attacks accusing Castillo of being linked to armed communist groups. "The Guardian" described accusations linking Castillo to Shining Path as "incorrect", while the Associated Press said that allegations by Peruvian media of links to Shining Path were "unsupported."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Colombian journalist Clara Elvira Ospina of Grupo who was the journalistic director of La República's América Televisión and El Comercio's Canal N was removed from her position on 24 April 2021 after having served in the position for a total of nine years. Grupo La República shareholder Gustavo Mohme Seminario said that the firing occurred shortly after Ospina had a conversation with Keiko Fujimori and other news editors. One anonymous individual said that Ospina allegedly told Fujimori that the journalistic direction of the media organizations would not favor her or Castillo, instead using impartiality during their coverage.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Mohme criticized the dismissal of Ospina, saying: "I do not want to be a silent troupe of these legal shenanigans that seeks to arbitrarily impose who will assume the reins of the main television channel in the country." Mohme resigned from the editorial council. The Knight Center for Specialized Journalism wrote that Mohme described the incident as self-censorship. Diego Salazar, former editor of Peru21, said that the dismissal was "an obvious sign that you are seeking to intervene in the electoral campaign in a way that is not journalistic." Members of "Cuarto Poder", an investigative journalism program on América TV, had their letter to the board of directors leaked in May 2021 where they said that Ospina's dismissal "represented serious damage to the work we do and to the image of the program", and accused her replacement, Gilberto Hume, of having an agenda against Castillo and in favor of Fujimori, writing: "Within that conversation it was implicit that (Hume) asked us to support the candidate of Fuerza Popular to the detriment of the candidate of Free Peru." Luis Galarreta, Fujimori's pick for first vice president, said that the meeting with Ospina was discussing debates and "nothing more", adding that "nobody thinks of influencing a medium." Shortly after polls closed on 6 June, the journalists of "Cuarto Poder" who sent a letter criticizing alleged censorship were fired by La República's América Televisión and El Comercio's Canal N.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The first round was held on 11 April. The first exit polls published indicated that underdog nominee Pedro Castillo of Free Peru had placed first in the first round of voting with approximately 16.1% of the vote, with Hernando de Soto and Keiko Fujimori tying with 11.9% each. Yonhy Lescano, Rafael López Aliaga, Verónika Mendoza, and George Forsyth followed, with each receiving 11.0%, 10.5%, 8.8%, and 6.4%, respectively. César Acuña and Daniel Urresti received 5.8% and 5.0%, respectively, while the rest of the nominees attained less than 3% of the popular vote.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: In the second round, Castillo defeated Fujimori by just 44,263 votes, winning by 50.13% to 49.87%. Castillo was officially designated as president-elect of Peru on 19 July 2021, a little over a week before he was to be inaugurated.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: The Popular Action, the largest party in the previous legislature, lost some of its seats, and previous parliamentary parties like Union for Peru (UPP) and the Broad Front (FA) had their worst results ever, attaining no representation. The Peruvian Nationalist Party of former President Ollanta Humala and National Victory of George Forsyth (who led polling for the presidential election earlier in the year) failed to win seats as well. New or previously minor parties such as Free Peru, Go on Country and Together for Peru and Popular Renewal, the successor of National Solidarity, had good results, with Free Peru becoming the largest party in Congress. Contigo, the successor to former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski's Peruvians for Change party, failed to win a seat once again and received less than 1% of the vote. On 26 July, two days before Castillo was sworn in as Peru's President, an opposition alliance led by Popular Action member María del Carmen Alva successfully negotiated an agreement to gain control of Peru's Congress.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Following reports of Castillo's apparent victory, Fujimori and her supporters made unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud, leading obstructionist efforts to overturn the election with support of wealthy citizens of Lima. The economic and political elites refused to recognize Castillo's ascent to the presidency, with those among the more affluent, including former military officers and wealthy families, demanded new elections, promoted calls for a military coup, and utilized classist or racist rhetoric to support their allegations of fraud. According to analysts, Peru was more susceptible to unrest as a result of Fujimori's narrative since democratic institutions are weaker in the nation. Minor clashes occurred in Lima between Fujimori supporters from the capital city and Castillo supporters from other regions, with rondas campesinas equipped with sticks and machetes arriving in the Historic Centre of Lima to defend Castillo's election and dissuade Fujimori protesters.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Senior fellow of the Washington Office on Latin America Jo Marie Burt described the overturn attempts as "a slow-motion conspiracy to prevent Castillo from becoming president", with "The Guardian" reporting that if Castillo was prevented from becoming president by 28 July 2021, a new election would be initiated. Fujimori's statements about possibly overturning the election, along with her use of fake news and legal challenges, were also described as being inspired by the attempts to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election by former U.S. president Donald Trump. According to Cornell University professor of Latin American politics Kenneth Roberts, "[w]hen the credibility is called into question the way it has been by Trump and the Republicans in the U.S., it creates a bad example that other leaders and countries can follow, providing a template to change results they don't like."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: On 18 June, former Supreme Court President Javier Villa Stein filed a complaint for protection by describing the ballot vote as "questioned", arguing an alleged "electoral process flawed by various acts that undermine the popular will" and asking the judiciary branch to "declare the election void." Lawyer Renán Galindo Peralta requested that it be rejected outright considering it inadmissible because it did not fall under the Organic Law of Elections and because the judicial branch lacked the powers to annul elections.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: To avoid the questions of election legitimacy, election authorities in Peru approved the use of election monitoring. In total, one hundred and fifty observers (ninety-nine in Peru and fifty-one abroad) were approved to observe elections throughout Peru. The origin of the observers were from twenty-two different countries, with thirty-five observers from the Organization of American States, while others were from Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, and Uruguay. Observer approval required providing election authorities observation plans; these plans included protocols to inform authorities of crimes, violations of electoral law or any complaints they collected. Observers were then responsible with providing an official, final report to authorities. According to OjoPúblico, "the observers carry out the review of the activities of election day, ranging from the installation of the voting tables, the conditioning of the secret chambers, the conformity of the ballots, the minutes, the amphorae and any other electoral material, to the counting, the counting of the vote and the transfer of the electoral records at the end of the day."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: After Castillo took the lead during the ballot-counting process, Fujimori promoted unproven claims of electoral fraud. In a media event following election day, Fujimori alleged that a "series of irregularities" had occurred, presenting photographs and videos in an attempt to support her allegations, while also accusing Free Peru of attempting to "distort and delay" the election process. Fujimori argued that it consisted in the challenge of polling stations where Fujimori would register a greater number of votes than his opponent, previous training talks by Free Peru in which they ask their representatives to arrive early at the polling stations to ensure control of the polling stations where titular members did not attend and irregularities in the vote count. To support the complaints, Keiko's running mate, Luis Galarreta, assured that Free Peru did a "high number of challenges" to electoral acts in which Keiko was favoured so they could not be counted to the final estimate until they were evaluated first by the National Jury of Elections. According to the complaint, over 1 300 voting acts were challenged by Free Peru; however, the first claims were rebutted by national electoral entities. After the resolution of the challenged votes and the acts observed by the Special Electoral Juries, the National Office of Electoral Processes published the total results on 15 June, in which Pedro Castillo surpassed Keiko Fujimori in number of votes.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: According to "The Guardian", various international observers countered Fujimori's claims, stating that the election process was conducted in accordance with international standards. Observers from the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations, the Organization of American States, and the Progressive International denied any instances of widespread fraud and praised the accuracy of the elections. "The Guardian" also reported that analysts and political observers criticized Fujimori's remarks, noting that it made her appear desperate after losing her third presidential run in a ten-year period. Fernando Tuesta, political scientist from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, stated: "It's extremely regrettable that when the result is not favourable, that the candidate talks about fraud. It's terrible, ... They have been talking about fraud because they don't want to respect the result." On 9 June, Fujimori sought to have around 200,000 votes annulled and for 300,000 votes to be reviewed.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: On 10 June, the Peruvian Prosecution asked for the detention of Keiko on charges of violating the conditional liberty that she was granted during the open criminal process against her. On 17 June, Fujimori repeated claims of voter fraud. On 28 June, Fujimori traveled to the Government Palace and personally delivered demands to President Francisco Sagasti to initiate an audit of the results by international entities. On 30 June, several members of the Popular Force party traveled to the OAS Building in Washington, D.C., to publicize the voter fraud claims, with sociologist Francesca Emanuele condemning them as "coup plotters" during a press conference. On 2 July, Sagasti rejected a request to audit the second round of the election, and Fujimori accused Sagasti of abdicating his "great responsibility to ensure fair elections." On 19 July, Fujimori admitted her defeat but reaffirmed that "votes were stolen" from her.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Rumors spread of a possible coup d'état against Castillo, if he were declared the official winner of the presidential election. A letter signed by almost one-hundred retired officers of the Peruvian armed forces was written calling on current military leaders in Peru to refuse recognizing the election of Castillo into the presidency. President Sagasti condemned the letter, stating: "They want to incite top commanders of the Army, Navy, and Air force to break the rule of law."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: On 25 June, former 2001 and 2016 presidential candidate Fernando Olivera revealed audio tapes, alleging that Vladimiro Montesinos, who was the right hand man to former President Alberto Fujimori currently serving a prison sentence for crimes committed during the Fujimori period, was behind the attempts for Keiko Fujimori to be declared as the winner of the second round against Castillo, including through the payment of bribes to electoral officials and influencing the National Jury of Elections. The National Penitentiary Institute and Peruvian Navy announced an investigation, confirming that Montesinos made two phone calls from Callao Naval Base where he is jailed, on 10 and 23 June to unauthorised persons coordinating the effort to overturn the election.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Further reports showed that Montesinos allegedly was able to make seventeen phone calls from a landline phone to retired military officer Pedro Rejas, reportedly suggesting to Rejas that bribes needed to be paid and that Fujimori's husband, an American, go to the United States embassy in Lima to present "documentation of the fraud" to the Office of Regional Affairs and Central Intelligence Agency. According to IDL-Reporteros, Montesinos suggests that the documentation would reach President Joe Biden and that his administration would condemn the election as interference from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, subsequently giving Fujimori's claims of fraud more weight.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Lourdes Flores, leader of the Christian People's Party, which supported Fujimori in the election, argued carrying out her own analysis of certain electoral acts, concluding that there was a mechanism to "improperly incline the vote" in favor of Pedro Castillo. Rafael López Aliaga, former presidential candidate for Popular Renewal who supported Fujimori as well, argued that the second round or ballot should be repeated because "there is a fraud that cannot be covered up anymore". Alfredo Barnechea, former candidate for Popular Action, affirmed that the irregularities detected were "massive" and that therefore the ballot should be repeated with international observation or else whoever is elected "will not have any legitimacy."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Former Peruvian prime minister Salvador del Solar declared that "there is no legal basis to denounce fraud nor to request new elections." The Secretary General of the Transparency Civil Association, Iván Lanegra, declared that "there is no indication of fraud" in the Peruvian elections. Verónika Mendoza, former candidate who endorsed Castillo, described Popular Will's annulment requests as attempts to dismiss the electoral results and "hit democracy." Journalist César Hildebrandt said that by dismissing the election results, "what Keiko Fujimori is doing is equivalent to a soft coup", describing the allegations of Fujimori's alleged fraud as "Andean Trumpism."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: On 23 June, Luis Arce, a judge on the National Jury of Elections (JNE), resigned and alleged bias on the jury which had rejected ten Fujimori requests to annul Castillo votes. On its Twitter account, JNE rejected Arce's allegation of bias as "offensive", and said its judges were not allowed to resign in the middle of reviews of cases, so he would be suspended instead, and a provisional replacement found "to avoid delaying our work." Castillo's Free Peru party said the resignation was aimed at "preventing the proclamation of Pedro Castillo, thereby ignoring the popular vote, breaking democracy and installing a coup d'état with silk gloves." In the wake of Arce's resignation, a lawyer representing Fujimori said that the government should consider asking the Organization of American States (OAS) to audit the electoral process, as was done during the 2019 Bolivian political crisis. The OAS stated that its mission to the country had not found any issues in the conduct of the election. Former candidate George Forsyth attributed it as part of the preparation of a "coup d'etat" and that Arce himself was "attacking democracy."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Leftist leaders in Latin America congratulated Castillo shortly after preliminary results were tallied. President of Argentina Alberto Fernández tweeted that he had spoken to the "President-elect" Castillo and that he wished to cooperate with him. President of Bolivia Luis Arce tweeted that "Bolivia joins the celebration of the Peruvian people", calling Castillo his "brother", and stating that the two would "continue the struggle for a tomorrow with justice and equality for the people." Evo Morales and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former presidents of Bolivia and Brazil, respectively, also congratulated Castillo.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Ned Price, Spokesperson for the United States Department of State, described the elections as "a model of democracy", agreeing that it was necessary to give time to the electoral authorities to publish the results according to Peruvian law, while also stating: "We congratulate the Peruvian authorities for safely administering another round of free, fair, accessible and peaceful elections, even amid the significant challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic." The European Union described the election as "free and democratic."


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: Andrés Pastrana Arango, former President of Colombia and member of the international forum IDEA (Spanish: "Iniciativa Democrática de España y las Américas"), declared that there are "serious indications that Venezuela has its hands in the Peruvian electoral system", suggesting an international audit of the electoral results. The claim was rejected by the Peruvian National Office of Electoral Processes, which assured that the vote count was done transparently. Peruvian Nobel laureate residing in Spain Mario Vargas Llosa expressed his support for electoral authorities to carefully review the contested acts, saying that what is important is to have a president "that the majority of Peruvian voters has chosen and not a fraudulent president." Colombian president Iván Duque and Ecuadorian president Guillermo Lasso congratulated Castillo in July for his proclamation.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: After exit polls gave the victory to Keiko Fujimori over Pedro Castillo, supporters of Free Peru mobilized to the offices of the ONPE to protest against a possible fraud against their candidate, bringing banners saying "no to the fraud." From Tacabamba, Cajamarca, Castillo called upon his followers and supporters on Twitter to "defend the votes" and go to the streets to "defend democracy." Protests against Fujimori and an alleged fraud took place in cities such as Juliaca, Puno, and Ilave.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: After the publication of the quick count and the first official results, protests by supporters of both Free Peru and Popular Force took place. Amid the fraud accusations and the final vote count, there were nearly daily protests and marches, mostly in the capital Lima. Besides Fujimori supporters, groups opposed to Castillo, mobilized by the fear of communism or aversion to the left wing, mobilized asking for the annulment of the elections. Among the opposition groups there were anti-communists, far-right followers, and neo-Nazi groups, including "Acción Legionaria" (Legionary Action). During a mobilization in the San Martín Square in Lima, "rondas campesinas" supportive of Castillo carried machetes with them. On 14 July, several pro-Fujimori protesters gathered at the Government Palace demanding an audit of the election. Protesters clashed with the National Police of Peru, and Health Minister Óscar Ugarte and Housing Minister Solangel Fernández were attacked during the protests. On 15 July, Sagasti reaffirmed that there was no evidence of voter fraud.


title: 2021 Peruvian general election

text: In late June, an IEP poll showed that thirty-one percent of participants believed in Fujimori's claims of fraud. A statistical analysis of the company Ipsos Peru on the results published by the National Office of Electoral Processes did not find evidence of an atypical distribution of votes to any candidate, neither in certain geographical areas nor for a particular candidate. In a survey carried out by Datum Internacional, 65% of respondents (both Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori voters) believed that there were "signs" of fraud in the elections. A survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies showed that 66% of participants considered that Castillo had won the election.


title: Price of oil

text: The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel () of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Reference Basket, Tapis crude, Bonny Light, Urals oil, Isthmus and Western Canadian Select (WCS). Oil prices are determined by global supply and demand, rather than any country's domestic production level.


title: Price of oil

text: The global price of crude oil was relatively consistent in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. This changed in the 1970s, with a significant increase in the price of oil globally.


title: Price of oil

text: There have been a number of structural drivers of global oil prices historically, including oil supply, demand, and storage shocks, and shocks to global economic growth affecting oil prices.


title: Price of oil

text: Notable events driving significant price fluctuations include the 1973 OPEC oil embargo targeting nations that had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War resulting in the 1973 oil crisis, the Iranian Revolution in the 1979 oil crisis, and the financial crisis of 2007–2008, and the more recent 2013 oil supply glut that led to the "largest oil price declines in modern history" in 2014 to 2016. The 70% decline in global oil prices was "one of the three biggest declines since World War II, and the longest lasting since the supply-driven collapse of 1986."


title: Price of oil

text: By 2015, the United States had become the 3rd largest producer of oil—moving from importer to exporter.


title: Price of oil

text: The 2020 Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war resulted in a 65% decline in global oil prices at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the record-high energy prices were driven by a global surge in demand as the world recovered from the COVID-19 recession. By December 2021, an unexpected rebound in the demand for oil from United States, China and India, coupled with U.S. shale industry investors' "demands to hold the line on spending", has contributed to "tight" oil inventories globally. On 18 January 2022, as the price of Brent crude oil reached its highest since 2014—$88, concerns were raised about the rising cost of gasoline—which hit a record high in the United Kingdom.


title: Price of oil

text: According to Our World in Data, in the nineteenth and early twentieth century the global crude oil prices were "relatively consistent." In the 1970s, there was a "significant increase" in the price of oil globally, partially in response to the 1973 and 1979 oil crises. In 1980, globally averaged prices "spiked" to US$107.27.


title: Price of oil

text: Historically, there have been a number of factors affecting the global price of oil. These have included the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries led by Saudi Arabia resulting in the 1973 oil crisis, the Iranian Revolution in the 1979 oil crisis, Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), the 1990 Invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, the 1991 Gulf War, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the September 11 attacks, the 2002–2003 national strike in Venezuela's state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the 2007–2008 global financial collapse (GFC), OPEC 2009 cut in oil production, the Arab Spring 2010s uprisings in Egypt and Libya, the ongoing Syrian civil war (2011–present), the 2013 oil supply glut that led to the "largest oil price declines in modern history" in 2014 to 2016. The 70% decline in global oil prices was "one of the three biggest declines since World War II, and the longest lasting since the supply-driven collapse of 1986." By 2015 the United States was the 3rd largest producer of oil moving from importer to exporter. The 2020 Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war resulted in a 65% decline in global oil prices at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Price of oil

text: Structural drivers affecting historical global oil prices include are "oil supply shocks, oil-market-specific demand shocks, storage demand shocks", "shocks to global economic growth", and "speculative demand for oil stocks above the ground".


title: Price of oil

text: Oil prices are determined by global forces of supply and demand, according to the classical economic model of price determination in microeconomics. The demand for oil is highly dependent on global macroeconomic conditions. According to the International Energy Agency, high oil prices generally have a large negative impact on global economic growth.


title: Price of oil

text: In response to the 1973 oil crisis, in 1974, the RAND Corporation presented a new economic model of the global oil market that included four sectors—"crude production, transportation, refining, and consumption of products" and these regions—United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia. The study listed exogenous variables that can affect the price of oil: "regional supply and demand equations, the technology of refining, and government policy variables". Based on these exogenous variables, their proposed economic model would be able to determine the "levels of consumption, production, and price for each commodity in each region, the pattern of world trade flows, and the refinery capital structure and output in each region".


title: Price of oil

text: A system dynamics economic model of oil price determination "integrates various factors affecting" the dynamics of the price of oil, according to a 1992 "European Journal of Operational Research" article.


title: Price of oil

text: A widely cited 2008 "The Review of Economics and Statistics", article by Lutz Killian, examined the extent to which "exogenous oil supply shocks"—such as the Iranian revolution (1978–1979), Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), Persian Gulf War (1990–1991), Iraq War (2003), Civil unrest in Venezuela (2002–2003), and perhaps the Yom Kippur War/Arab oil embargo (1973–1974)"—explain changes in the price of oil." Killian stated that, by 2008, there was "widespread recognition" that "oil prices since 1973 must be considered endogenous with respect to global macroeconomic conditions," but Kilian added that these "standard theoretical models of the transmission of oil price shocks that maintain that everything else remains fixed, as the real price of imported crude oil increases, are misleading and must be replaced by models that allow for the endogenous determination of the price of oil." Killian found that there was "no evidence that the 1973–1974 and 2002–2003 oil supply shocks had a substantial impact on real growth in any G7 country, whereas the 1978–1979, 1980, and 1990–1991 shocks contributed to lower growth in at least some G7 countries."


title: Price of oil

text: A 2019 Bank of Canada (BOC) report, described the usefulness of a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model for conditional forecasts of global GDP growth and oil consumption in relation to four types of oil shocks. The structural vector autoregressive model was proposed by the American econometrician and macroeconomist Christopher A. Sims in 1982 as an alternative statistical framework model for macroeconomists. According to the BOC report—using the SVAR model—"oil supply shocks were the dominant force during the 2014–15 oil price decline".


title: Price of oil

text: By 2016, despite improved understanding of oil markets, predicting oil price fluctuations remained a challenge for economists, according to a 2016 article in the "Journal of Economic Perspectives" , which was based on an extensive review of academic literature by economists on "all major oil price fluctuations between 1973 and 2014".


title: Price of oil

text: A 2016 article in the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies describes how analysts offered differing views on why the price of oil had decreased 55% from "June 2014 to January 2015" following "four years of relative stability at around US$105 per barrel". A 2015 World Bank report said that the low prices "likely marks the end of the commodity supercycle that began in the early 2000s" and they expected prices to "remain low for a considerable period of time".


title: Price of oil

text: Goldman Sachs, for example, has called this structural shift, the "New Oil Order"—created by the U.S. shale revolution. Goldman Sachs said that this structural shift was "reshaping global energy markets and bringing with it a new era of volatility" by "impacting markets, economies, industries and companies worldwide" and will keep the price of oil lower for a prolonged period. Others say that this cycle is like previous cycles and that prices will rise again.


title: Price of oil

text: A 2020 "Energy Economics" article confirmed that the "supply and demand of global crude oil and the financial market" continued to be the major factors that affected the global price of oil. The researchers using a new Bayesian structural time series model, found that shale oil production continued to increase its impact on oil price but it remained "relatively small".


title: Price of oil

text: Major benchmark references, or pricing markers, include Brent, WTI, the OPEC Reference Basket (ORB)—introduced on 16 June 2005 and is made up of Saharan Blend (from Algeria), Girassol (from Angola), Oriente (from Ecuador), Rabi Light (from Gabon), Iran Heavy (from Iran), Basra Light (from Iraq), Kuwait Export (from Kuwait), Es Sider (from Libya), Bonny Light (from Nigeria), Qatar Marine (from Qatar), Arab Light (from Saudi Arabia), Murban (from UAE), and Merey (from Venezuela), Dubai Crude, and Tapis Crude (Singapore).


title: Price of oil

text: In North America the benchmark price refers to the spot price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), also known as Texas Light Sweet, a type of crude oil used as a benchmark in oil pricing and the underlying commodity of New York Mercantile Exchange's oil futures contracts. WTI is a light crude oil, lighter than Brent Crude oil. It contains about 0.24% sulfur, rating it a sweet crude, sweeter than Brent. Its properties and production site make it ideal for being refined in the United States, mostly in the Midwest and Gulf Coast regions. WTI has an API gravity of around 39.6 (specific gravity approx. 0.827) per barrel (159 liters) of either WTI/light crude as traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) for delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma. Cushing, Oklahoma, a major oil supply hub connecting oil suppliers to the Gulf Coast, has become the most significant trading hub for crude oil in North America.


title: Price of oil

text: In Europe and some other parts of the world, the price of the oil benchmark is Brent Crude as traded on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE, into which the International Petroleum Exchange has been incorporated) for delivery at Sullom Voe. Brent oil is produced in coastal waters (North Sea) of UK and Norway. The total consumption of crude oil in UK and Norway is more than the oil production in these countries. So Brent crude market is very opaque with very low oil trade physically. Brent price is used widely to fix the prices of crude oil, LPG, LNG, natural gas, etc. trade globally including Middle East crude oils.


title: Price of oil

text: There is a differential in the price of a barrel of oil based on its grade—determined by factors such as its specific gravity or API gravity and its sulfur content—and its location—for example, its proximity to tidewater and refineries. Heavier, sour crude oils lacking in tidewater access—such as Western Canadian Select—are less expensive than lighter, sweeter oil—such as WTI.


title: Price of oil

text: The Energy Information Administration (EIA) uses the imported refiner acquisition cost, the weighted average cost of all oil imported into the US, as its "world oil price".


title: Price of oil

text: The price of oil remained "relatively consistent" from 1861 until the 1970s. In Daniel Yergin's 1991 Pulitzer prize-winning book "", Yergin described how the "oil-supply management system"—which had been run by "international oil companies"—had "crumbled" in 1973. Yergin states that the role of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)—which had been established in 1960, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela— in controlling the price of oil, was dramatically changed. Since 1927, a cartel known as the "Seven Sisters"—five of which were headquartered in the United States—had been controlling posted prices since the so-called 1927 Red Line Agreement and 1928 Achnacarry Agreement, and had achieved a high level of price stability until 1972, according to Yergin.


title: Price of oil

text: There were two major energy crisis in the 1970s: the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis that affected the price of oil. Starting in the early 1970s—when domestic production of oil was insufficient to satisfy increasing domestic demands—the US had become increasingly dependent on oil imports from the Middle East. Until the early 1970s, the price of oil in the United States was regulated domestically and indirectly by the Seven Sisters. The "magnitude" of the increase in the price of oil following OPEC's 1973 embargo in reaction to the Yom Kippur War and the 1979 Iranian Revolution, was without precedent. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. During the ensuing 1973 oil crisis, the Arab oil-producing states began to embargo oil shipments to Western Europe and the United States in retaliation for supporting Israel. Countries, including the United States, Germany, Japan, and Canada began to establish their own national energy programs that were focused on security of supply of oil, as the newly formed Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) doubled the price of oil.


title: Price of oil

text: During the 1979 oil crisis, the global oil supply was "constrained" because of the 1979 Iranian Revolution—the price of oil "more than doubled", then began to decline in "real terms from 1980 onwards, eroding OPEC's power over the global economy," according to "The Economist".


title: Price of oil

text: In the early 1980s, concurrent with the OPEC embargo, oil prices experienced a "rapid decline." In early 2007, the price of oil was US$50. In 1980, globally averaged prices "spiked" to US$107.27, and reached its all-time peak of US$147 in July 2008.


title: Price of oil

text: The 1980s oil glut was caused by non-OPEC countries—such as the United States and Britain—increasing their oil production, which resulted in a decrease in the price of oil in the early 1980s, according to "The Economist". When OPEC changed their policy to increase oil supplies in 1985, "oil prices collapsed and remained low for almost two decades", according to a 2015 World Bank report.


title: Price of oil

text: In 1983, the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) launched crude oil futures contracts, and the London-based International Petroleum Exchange (IPE)—acquired by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in 2005— launched theirs in June 1988.


title: Price of oil

text: The price of oil reached a peak of c. US$65 during the 1990 Persian Gulf crisis and war. The 1990 oil price shock occurred in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, according to the Brookings Institution.


title: Price of oil

text: There was a period of global recessions and the price of oil hit a low of before it peaked at a high of $45 on 11 September 2001, the day of the September 11 attacks, only to drop again to a low of $26 on 8 May 2003.


title: Price of oil

text: There were major energy crises in the 2000s including the 2010s oil glut with changes in the world oil market.


title: Price of oil

text: Starting in 1999, the price of oil rose significantly. It was explained by the rising oil demand in countries like China and India. A dramatic increase from US$50 in early 2007, to a peak of US$147 in July 2008, was followed by a decline to US$34 in December 2008, as the financial crisis of 2007–2008 took hold.


title: Price of oil

text: By May 2008, The United States was consuming approximately 21 million bpd and importing about 14 million bpd—60% with OPEC supply 16% and Venezuela 10%. In the middle of the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the price of oil underwent a significant decrease after the record peak of US$147.27 it reached on 11 July 2008. On 23 December 2008, WTI crude oil spot price fell to US$30.28 a barrel, the lowest since the financial crisis of 2007–2008 began. The price sharply rebounded after the crisis and rose to US$82 a barrel in 2009.


title: Price of oil

text: On 31 January 2011, the Brent price hit $100 a barrel briefly for the first time since October 2008, on concerns that the 2011 Egyptian protests would "lead to the closure of the Suez Canal and disrupt oil supplies". For about three and half years the price largely remained in the $90–$120 range.


title: Price of oil

text: From 2004 to 2014, OPEC was setting the global price of oil. OPEC started setting a target price range of $100–110/bbl before the 2008 financial crisis —by July 2008 the price of oil had reached its all-time peak of US$147 before it plunged to US$34 in December 2008, during the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Some commentators including "Business Week," the "Financial Times" and the "Washington Post", argued that the rise in oil prices prior to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 was due to speculation in futures markets.


title: Price of oil

text: Up until 2014, the dominant factor on the price of oil was from the demand side—from "China and other emerging economies".


title: Price of oil

text: By 2014, production from unconventional reservoirs through hydraulic fracturing in the United States and oil production in Canada, caused oil production to surge globally "on a scale that most oil exporters had not anticipated" resulting in "turmoil in prices." The United States oil production was greater than that of Russia and Saudi Arabia, and according to some, broke OPEC's control of the price of oil. In the middle of 2014, price started declining due to a significant increase in oil production in USA, and declining demand in the emerging countries. According to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in 2014–2015, Saudi Arabia flooded the market with inexpensive crude oil in a failed attempted to slow down US shale oil production, and caused a "positive supply shock" which saved consumers about US$2 trillion and "benefited the world economy".


title: Price of oil

text: During 2014–2015, OPEC members consistently exceeded their production ceiling, and China experienced a marked slowdown in economic growth. At the same time, U.S. oil production nearly doubled from 2008 levels, due to substantial improvements in shale "fracking" technology in response to record oil prices. A combination of factors led a plunge in U.S. oil import requirements and a record high volume of worldwide oil inventories in storage, and a collapse in oil prices that continues into 2016. Between June 2014 and January 2015, according to the World Bank, the collapse in the price of oil was the third largest since 1986.


title: Price of oil

text: In early 2015, the US oil price fell below $50 per barrel dragging Brent oil to just below $50 as well.


title: Price of oil

text: The 2010s oil glut—caused by multiple factors—spurred a sharp downward spiral in the price of oil that continued through February 2016. By 3 February 2016 oil was below $30— a drop of "almost 75% since mid-2014 as competing producers pumped 1–2 million barrels of crude daily exceeding demand, just as China's economy hit lowest growth in a generation." The North Sea oil and gas industry was financially stressed by the reduced oil prices, and called for government support in May 2016. According to a report released on 15 February 2016 by Deloitte LLP—the audit and consulting firm—with global crude oil at near ten-year low prices, 35% of listed E&P oil and gas companies are at a high risk of bankruptcy worldwide. Indeed, bankruptcies "in the oil and gas industry could surpass levels seen in the Great Recession."


title: Price of oil

text: By December 2018, OPEC members controlled approximately 72% of total world proved oil reserves, and produced about 41% of the total global crude oil supply. In June 2018, OPEC reduced production. In late September and early October 2018, the price of oil rose to a four-year high of over $80 for the benchmark Brent crude in response to concerns about constraints on global supply. The production capacity in Venezuela had decreased. United States sanctions against Iran, OPEC's third-biggest oil producer, were set to be restored and tightened in November.


title: Price of oil

text: The price of oil dropped in November 2018 because of a number of factors, including "rising petro-nations’ oil production, the U.S. shale oil boom, and swelling North American oil inventories," according to "Market Watch".


title: Price of oil

text: The 1 November 2018 U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) report announced that the US had become the "leading crude oil producer in the world" when it hit a production level of 11.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in August 2018, mainly because of its shale oil production. US exports of petroleum—crude oil and products—exceeded imports in September and October 2019, "for the first time on record, based on monthly values since 1973."


title: Price of oil

text: When the price of Brent oil dropped rapidly in November 2018 to $58.71, more than 30% from its peak,—the biggest 30-day drop since 2008—factors included increased oil production in Russia, some OPEC countries and the United States, which deepened global over supply.


title: Price of oil

text: In 2019 the average price of Brent crude oil in 2019 was $64, WTI crude oil was $57, the OPEC Reference Basket (ORB) of 14 crudes was $59.48 a barrel.


title: Price of oil

text: In 2020, the economic turmoil caused by the COVID-19 recession, included severe impacts on crude oil markets, which caused a large stock market fall. The substantial decrease in the price of oil was caused by two main factors: the 2020 Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war and the COVID-19 pandemic, which lowered demand for oil because of lockdowns around the world.


title: Price of oil

text: The IHS Market reported that the "COVID-19 demand shock" represented a bigger contraction than that experienced during the Great Recession during the late 2000s and early 2010s. As demand for oil dropped to 4.5m million bpd below forecasts, tensions rose between OPEC members. At a 6 March OPEC meeting in Vienna, major oil producers were unable to agree on reducing oil production in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The spot price of WTI benchmark crude oil on the NYM on 6 March 2020 dropped to US$42.10 per barrel. On 8 March, the 2020 Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war was launched, in which Saudi Arabia and Russia briefly flooded the market, also contributed to the decline in global oil prices. Later on the same day, oil prices had decreased by 30%, representing the largest one-time drop since the 1991 Gulf War. Oil traded at about $30 a barrel. Very few energy companies can produce oil when the price of oil is this low. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq had the lowest production costs in 2016, while the United Kingdom, Brazil, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Canada had the highest. On 9 April, Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to oil production cuts.


title: Price of oil

text: By April 2020 the price of WTI dropped by 80%, down to a low of about $5. As the demand for fuel decreased globally with pandemic-related lockdowns preventing travel, and due to excessive demand for storage of the large surplus in production, the price for future delivery of US crude in May became negative on 20 April 2020, the first time to happen since the New York Mercantile Exchange began trading in 1983.In April, as the demand decreased, concerns about inadequate storage capacity resulted in oil firms "renting tankers to store the surplus supply". An October "Bloomberg" report on slumping oil prices—citing the EIA among others—said that, with the increasing number of virus cases, the demand for gasoline—particularly in the United States—was "particularly worrisome", while global inventories remained "quite high".


title: Price of oil

text: With the price of WTI at a record low, and 2019 Chinese 5% import tariff on U.S. oil lifted by China in May 2020, China began to import large quantities of US crude oil, reaching a record high of 867,000 bpd in July.


title: Price of oil

text: According to a January 2020 EIA report, the average price of Brent crude oil in 2019 was $64 per barrel compared to $71 per barrel in 2018. The average price of WTI crude oil was $57 per barrel in 2019 compared to $64 in 2018. On 20 April 2020, WTI Crude futures contracts dropped below $0 for the first time in history, and the following day Brent Crude fell below $20 per barrel. The substantial decrease in the price of oil was caused by two main factors: the 2020 Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war and the COVID-19 pandemic, which lowered demand for oil because of lockdowns around the world. In the fall of 2020, against the backdrop of the resurgent pandemic, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that global oil inventories remained "quite high" while demand for gasoline—particularly in the United States—was "particularly worrisome." The price of oil was about US$40 by mid-October. In 2021, the record-high energy prices were driven by a global surge in demand as the world quit the economic recession caused by COVID-19, particularly due to strong energy demand in Asia.


title: Price of oil

text: The ongoing 2019–2021 Persian Gulf crisis, which includes the use of drones to attack Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure, has made the Gulf states aware of their vulnerability. Former US President "Donald Trump's 'maximum pressure' campaign led Iran to sabotage oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and supply drones and missiles for a surprise strike on Saudi oil facilities in 2019." In January 2022, Yemen's Houthi rebels drone attacks destroyed oil tankers in Abu Dhabi prompting concerns about further increases in the price of oil.


title: Price of oil

text: The oil prices were seen rising to hit $71.38 per barrel in March 2021, marking the highest since the beginning of the pandemic in January 2020. The oil price rise followed a missile drone attack on Saudi Arabia's Aramco oil facility by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The United States said it was committed to defending Saudi Arabia.


title: Price of oil

text: On 5 October 2021, crude oil prices reached a multiyear high but retreated by 2% the following day. The price of crude was on the rise since June 2021, after a statement by a top US diplomat that even with a nuclear deal with Iran, hundreds of economic sanctions would remain in place. Since September 2021, Europe's energy crisis has been worsening, driven by high crude prices and a scarcity of Russian gas on the continent.


title: Price of oil

text: The high price of oil in late 2021, which resulted in US gasoline pump prices that rose by over $1 a gallon—a seven-year high—added pressure to the United States, which has extensive reserves of oil and has been one of the world's largest producers of oil since at least 2018. One of the major factors in the US refraining from increased oil production is related to "investor demands for higher financial returns". Another factor as described by Forbes, is 'backwardation'—when oil futures markets see the current price of $85+ as higher than what they can anticipate in the months and years in the future. If investors perceive lower future prices, they will not invest in "new drilling and fracking."


title: Price of oil

text: By mid-January 2022, "Reuters" raised concerns that an increase in the price of oil to $100—which seemed to be imminent—would worsen the inflationary environment that was already breaking 30-year-old records. Central banks were concerned that higher energy prices would contribute to a "wage-price spiral." The European Union (EU) embargo of Russian seaborne oil, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, was one—but not the only—factor in the increase in the global price of oil, according to "The Economist". When the EU added new restrictions to Russia's oil on May 30, there was a dramatic increase in the price of Brent crude to over $120 a barrel. Other factors affecting the surge in the price of oil included the tight oil market combined with a "robust demand" for energy as travel increased following the easing of coronavirus restrictions. At the same time, the United States was experiencing decreased refinery capacity which led to higher prices for petrol and diesel. In a effort to lower energy prices and to curb inflation, President Biden announced on March 31, 2022, that he would be releasing a million bbl/d from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Bloomberg described how the price of oil, gas and other commodities had risen driven by a global "resurgence in demand" as COVID-19 restrictions were eased, combined with supply chains problems, and "geopolitical tensions".


title: Price of oil

text: The oil-storage trade, also referred to as contango, a market strategy in which large, often vertically integrated oil companies purchase oil for immediate delivery and storage—when the price of oil is low— and hold it in storage until the price of oil increases. Investors bet on the future of oil prices through a financial instrument, oil futures in which they agree on a contract basis, to buy or sell oil at a set date in the future. Crude oil is stored in salt mines, tanks and oil tankers.


title: Price of oil

text: Investors can choose to take profits or losses prior to the oil-delivery date arrives. Or they can leave the contract in place and physical oil is "delivered on the set date" to an "officially designated delivery point", in the United States, that is usually Cushing, Oklahoma. When delivery dates approach, they close out existing contracts and sell new ones for future delivery of the same oil. The oil never moves out of storage. If the forward market is in "contango"—the forward price is higher than the current spot price—the strategy is very successful.


title: Price of oil

text: Scandinavian Tank Storage AB and its founder Lars Jacobsson introduced the concept on the market in early 1990. But it was in 2007 through 2009 the oil storage trade expanded, with many participants—including Wall Street giants, such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Citicorp—turning sizeable profits simply by sitting on tanks of oil. By May 2007 Cushing's inventory fell by nearly 35% as the oil-storage trade heated up.


title: Price of oil

text: By the end of October 2009 one in twelve of the largest oil tankers was being used more for temporary storage of oil, rather than transportation.


title: Price of oil

text: From June 2014 to January 2015, as the price of oil dropped 60% and the supply of oil remained high, the world's largest traders in crude oil purchased at least 25 million barrels to store in supertankers to make a profit in the future when prices rise. Trafigura, Vitol, Gunvor, Koch, Shell and other major energy companies began to book oil storage supertankers for up to 12 months. By 13 January 2015 At least 11 Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) and Ultra Large Crude Carriers (ULCC)" have been reported as booked with storage options, rising from around five vessels at the end of last week. Each VLCC can hold 2 million barrels."


title: Price of oil

text: In 2015 as global capacity for oil storage was out-paced by global oil production, and an oil glut occurred. Crude oil storage space became a tradable commodity with CME Group— which owns NYMEX— offering oil-storage futures contracts in March 2015. Traders and producers can buy and sell the right to store certain types of oil.


title: Price of oil

text: By 5 March 2015, as oil production outpaces oil demand by 1.5 million bpd, storage capacity globally is dwindling. In the United States alone, according to data from the Energy Information Administration, U.S. crude-oil supplies are at almost 70% of the U. S. storage capacity, the highest to capacity ratio since 1935.


title: Price of oil

text: In 2020, rail and road tankers and decommissioned oil pipe lines are also being used to store crude oil for contango trade. For the WTI crude to be delivered in May 2020, the price had fallen to -$40 per bbl (i.e. buyers would be paid by the sellers for taking delivery of crude oil) due to lack of storage/expensive storage. LNG carriers and LNG tanks can also be used for long duration crude oil storage purpose since LNG can not be stored long term due to evaporation. Frac tanks are also used to store crude oil deviating from their normal use.


title: Price of oil

text: In their May 2019 comparison of the "cost of supply curve update" in which the Norway-based Rystad Energy—an "independent energy research and consultancy"—ranked the "worlds total recoverable liquid resources by their breakeven price", they listed the "Middle East onshore market" as the "cheapest source of new oil volumes globally" with the "North American tight oil"—which includes onshore shale oil in the United States—in second place. The breakeven price for North American shale oil was US$68 a barrel in 2015, making it one of the most expensive to produce. By 2019, the "average Brent breakeven price for tight oil was about US$46 per barrel. The breakeven price of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries was US$42, in comparison.


title: Price of oil

text: Rystad reported that the average breakeven price for oil from the oil sands was US$83 in 2019, making it the most expensive to produce, compared to all other "significant oil producing regions" in the world. The International Energy Agency made similar comparisons.


title: Price of oil

text: In 2016, the "Wall Street Journal" reported that the United Kingdom, Brazil, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Canada had the costliest production. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq had the cheapest.