Biden Delays Plans to Restock Emergency Oil Reserve

The Biden administration is delaying plans to restock the nation’s emergency oil reserve amid a value hike that has pushed oil above $80 a barrel.

The Energy Department canceled a deliberate buy of 6 million barrels for the strategic reserve this week, saying it needs to safe a great deal for taxpayers.

The administration stated it stays dedicated to refilling the reserve, which President Joe Biden considerably drained final yr in a bid to cease gasoline costs from rising amid manufacturing cuts by OPEC and a ban on Russian oil imports due to the conflict in Ukraine.

“The DOE stays dedicated to its replenishment technique for the SPR, together with direct purchases once we can safe a great deal for taxpayers,” Energy Department Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Bartol stated in an announcement, utilizing a nickname for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the official identify for the emergency stockpile.

Officials additionally will use focused trade returns and cancellation of deliberate oil gross sales “the place drawdown is pointless, in coordination with Congress,” Bartol stated.

Biden withdrew 180 million barrels from the strategic reserve beginning in March 2022, bringing the stockpile to its lowest degree because the Nineteen Eighties.

Biden’s drawdown introduced the reserve to about half its roughly 700-million barrel capability as he sought to tame excessive gasoline costs within the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Tapping the reserve is among the many few actions a president can take by himself to attempt to management inflation, an election-year legal responsibility for the social gathering accountable for the White House.

The Energy Department started refilling the reserve earlier this yr, buying 6.3 million barrels and canceling 140 million barrels in congressionally mandated gross sales that had been set to happen within the subsequent three years. Congress permitted the gross sales cancellations in a spending invoice final December.

The value for the oil buy was not introduced, however benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil was promoting at about $74 per barrel when the transaction was permitted. Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil was promoting at $81.85 per barrel on Wednesday amid tighter international provides.

Gasoline costs, in the meantime, have risen to about $3.80 per gallon, up from $3.53 per gallon in mid-May, in accordance to the AAA auto membership. Prices peaked at simply over $5 per gallon in June 2022.

An Energy spokeswoman emphasised that the U.S. maintains plentiful reserves that “stand ready should there be an emergency” that requires officers to faucet into the stockpile held in large salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has stated she intends to refill the reserve, though she instructed CNN final month that it won’t be accomplished throughout Biden’s present time period, which ends in January 2025.