A top Biden administration official said the president is prepared to release more crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower prices after it announced a 50 million barrel release last week.
Amos Hochstein, the senior energy security adviser at the State Department, said opening the reserve was among the tools the administration had at its disposal and “will be available again” if necessary.
Hochstein made his comments during an interview with CNBC on Monday, drawing a distinction between the 32 million barrels to be made available under the Energy Department’s exchange authority and the 18 million to be offered to companies in an accelerated sale.
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“Remember, this was not a 50 million barrel release; 30 million barrels were an exchange where companies and traders can take the oil now and return it over a scheduled period of time. That means the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will be replenished,” Hochstein said.
“And therefore, we have more flexibility to be able to do this again in the future if the need arises,” he added, saying the administration “wanted to do something that was impactful for the market and that also had the ability and the flexibility to allow us to do that again should the need arise for the American economy.”
The administration’s announcement detailed a commitment by six nations, including the United Kingdom, Japan, China, India, and South Korea, to release oil from their domestic stockpiles, a move aimed at reducing the price drivers pay at the pump.
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The United States’s 50 million barrel commitment is by far the largest among participating nations. Japan will reportedly release about 4.2 million barrels, while the U.K. will make 1.5 million barrels available. India will sell 5 million barrels from its stockpile, while details about how much oil China and South Korea will contribute are outstanding.
Last Tuesday’s announcement did little to swing the price of oil downward, with the benchmark Brent and West Texas Intermediate futures prices actually increasing on the day of the announcement, leading analysts to assess that the market had priced in the stockpile release.
