The United States will eliminate some congressionally mandated sales of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to bring the stockpile to its potential level had it not been for emissions induced by the Ukraine war, the U.S. Energy Secretary said Wednesday. country
President Joe Biden announced in March 2022 a withdrawal of one million barrels per day from the SPR over the next six months, a total of 180 million barrels. The move was aimed at keeping energy prices low as a result of supply cuts “as Russian oil exits the world market,” Biden said in the March 31, 2022, announcement.
“We’re planning to fill it fill it,” Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm said at the Global Energy Summit in Columbia. “We want to get it to where it would have been had it not been for the war and the sales as a result of that.”
The SPR, required by law to be used only during severe supply disruptions, stood at 369.6 million barrels on April 7, according to the Energy Information Administration’s latest update.
“The way the SPR works, it has four sites, four main sites. Two of them are in maintenance right now and two of them are selling oil to the market right now because Congress has ordered the sale of 26 million barrels of ‘previously, in order to fill budget holes,” Granholm said at the summit.
“And so we have, we have a legal obligation to do that. And because of the way the SPR works, you can’t sell and accept at the same time. And so sales for congressional requirements will end in the period of June, July and then we will look to be-take advantage of the prices if it is advantageous for the taxpayer the rest of the year,” Granholm added.
“So hopefully we can start filling, but it’s a lot to fill, I mean, I mean, there’s a hundred and sixty million barrels…it’s actually a little bit more than that,” Granholm continued.
Granholm also told the summit: “Another strange thing about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is that it takes longer to put the oil back in than to take it out, and so the rate of replenishment is significantly slower than the sales rate, than the exit. rate”.
“Yes, but we are doing it,” he stated at the summit. “We have a plan to do that. We’re going to cancel some of the sales that Congress had ordered, about a hundred and forty million barrels of sales, so we’re back to where we would have been had it not been for these sales.” , Granholm. added
“We still have the largest strategic oil reserve in the world right now, so be clear about that. We have a lot of reserves but we also want to tap into that if the market is right,” Granholm said at the summit.
The DOE on February 13 issued a notice of sale of the SPR offering 26 million barrels to “meet the congressional mandate set forth in Section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 and Section 32204 of the America’s Surface Transportation.” Deliveries will be made from April 1 to June 30.
Earlier, under the recall ordered by Biden, the department said it had awarded contracts for 15 million barrels of crude oil. That round of sales would total about 180 million barrels, the DOE said in a Nov. 3 news release.
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