US unveils plans to use oil from strategic reserves in May-July

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) has announced a Notice of Sale of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), Report informs referring to the DEO website.

The SPR will release approximately one million barrels of crude oil per day over the next six months. Crude oil in this emergency sale will enter the market in two releases.

The first 90 million barrels will be released between May and July, through two notices of sale totaling 70 million barrels, and 20 million barrels already scheduled to be released in May 2022. The remaining 90 million barrels will be released between August and October 2022. DOE must receive bids for the first notice of sale no later than April 12, 2022, and will award contracts to successful offerors no later than April 21, 2022.

The May through July sales will be conducted with crude oil from the following four SPR sites: up to 20.5 million barrels from Big Hill, up to 21.5 million barrels from West Hackberry, up to 18 million barrels from Bryan Mound, up to 10 million barrels from Bayou Choctaw.

Oil storage facilities located in four salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana hold up to 713.5 million barrels of oil. At the end of March 2022, they held 570 million barrels of oil.

On March 31, President Joe Biden announced that the US would release 1 million barrels of oil per day from the SPR within six months.