US ready to reopen oil stockpile if petrol prices surge again, FT reports

THE Biden administration is ready to release more oil from the US strategic stockpile to stop any jump in petrol prices this summer, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Monday (Jun 17).

Senior Biden adviser Amos Hochstein told the newspaper that oil prices are “still too high for many Americans” and he would like to see them “cut down a little bit further”.

Speaking to the FT, Hochstein said that the US would “continue to purchase into next year, until we think that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has the volume that it needs again to serve its original purpose of energy security”.

The Energy Department this year has been buying about three million barrels of oil per month for the SPR after selling 180 million barrels in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The move was an effort to curb gasoline prices that spiked to more than US$5 a gallon, but it also reduced the reserve to its lowest level in 40 years.

Earlier this month, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told Reuters that the US could hasten the rate of replenishing the SPR as maintenance on the stockpile is completed by the end of the year. REUTERS