President Joe Biden is expected to announce on Wednesday the sale of an additional 15 million barrels from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in December, according to a senior administration official, CNN has reported.
The move by the US administration seeks to counter market pressures created by the OPEC+ decision to cut oil production targets just three weeks from the US mid-term elections, the newsite noted.
“The price of gas is still too high, and we need to keep working to bring it down,” President Biden said at an event in Los Angeles last week, adding that he planned to announce additional actions in the coming days, CNN added.
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The planned action would fulfill the administration’s announcement in March to release a historic 180 million barrels from the SPR over a six-month period to counter soaring energy prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The action, which has been rolled out in regular sales over the last several months, helped drive gas prices down for nearly three straight months.
US officials had strategically slowed the size of sales as the six-month program neared its deadline in an effort to ease the market transition until the decision by OPEC+, which set off an intensive effort inside the administration to produce options to counter any resulting increase in gas prices.
President Biden has made it clear to his advisers that if the conditions merit, he is prepared to authorize future releases to balance the market.
On Wednesday, the US President will also detail the administration’s plan to refill the emergency reserve, which is now at its lowest level in nearly 40 years. Biden will announce that the administration intends to repurchase crude oil for the emergency reserve when prices are at or below between $67 and $72 per barrel, CNN said.
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