2 years ago
The Biden administration plans to announce a release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a bid to drive fuel prices down, two sources familiar with the plans said.
The White House will release 10 million to 15 million barrels from the reserve as part of an existing plan, announced in March, to release 180 million barrels of crude oil into the market throughout the year, according to two industry people granted anonymity to discuss confidential discussions with the administration. There are about 15 million barrels remaining in the original release authorized by the White House.
The move comes as the administration has been meeting with oil company executives to negotiate ways to lower fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections in which inflation, partly driven by high energy prices, will be a key issue.
The administration is also considering another release that would be separate from the previously authorized one, though a decision hasn't been made on whether to do so, the two people said. "It’s on the table, but they haven't made a go or no-go decision," one of the people said.
The administration also intends to announce plans to refill the reserve, two people familiar with the talks said. Details such as how much the administration would pay for the oil and when it would buy were still being worked out in one-on-one meetings with industry representatives, the people said.
"They'll make the announcement in the next 48 hours if they can get enough" industry people to agree to sell, said one industry representative, adding that the administration was asking the companies to forecast where oil prices might be in 2024.
Oil prices shot higher last week after the oil producing cartel OPEC and its allied countries announced they would cut their collective production by 2 million barrels a day.
Biden had promised a response to OPEC's decision, though the administration's options to lower fuel prices are limited. Prices had already come down from a recent high of $5.02 a gallon this summer, but started to increase last month amid refinery outages in California and Ohio. The national average price was $3.87 a gallon as of Tuesday morning, according to AAA.
A release from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve could also be authorized, one of the sources added. That reserve, which holds about 1 million barrels of heating oil in New England, hasn’t been tapped since 2012, according to its Web site.
Officials at the White House and Department of Energy did not comment.
English (US) ·