The US Department of Energy (DOE) has purchased 4.65 million barrels (mbbl) of crude oil for its SPR, bringing the total acquired since 2022 to more than 40mbbl.
The Biden administration drained the SPR in 2022 in response to high prices following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In March 2022, President Joe Biden announced that 180mbbl of crude from the reserve would be sold over six months – the largest SPR sale in history – to combat soaring energy prices.
Those barrels have now been replenished thanks to the 40mbbl added at the end of last week, and Congress recently cancelling 140mbbl of planned sales.
In 2022, the stockpile was sold to help control gasoline prices, which spiked to more than $5 per gallon after Russia invaded Ukraine.
In a press statement, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said: “This milestone is a proof point that when the Biden-Harris Administration makes and implements a plan, we deliver for the American people.”
She added the US had accomplished the repurchase while “getting a good deal for taxpayers and maintaining the readiness of the world’s largest Strategic Petroleum Reserve”.
The 43.25mbbl of the oil purchased for the SPR were bought for an average price of $77, nearly $20 per barrel (bbl) lower than the $95 average sale price for 2022’s emergency sales.
The other 140mbbl were bought at $74/bbl.
The department also noted that it will evaluate options to refill the SPR even more with the remaining proceeds from the 2022 emergency sales.
The SPR, the world's largest supply of emergency crude oil, was established to reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products.
The federally owned oil stocks are stored in huge underground salt caverns at four sites along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, with an authorised storage capacity of 714mbbl.
According to the energy department’s website, the SPR’s oil is “sold competitively when the President finds, pursuant to the conditions set forth in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), that a sale is required”.
