White House officials say that President Biden plans to release “15 million more barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), in a move aimed at cutting persistently high energy and gas prices.”
The senior administration officials said Biden will make the announcement in remarks Wednesday, less than three weeks before the midterm elections. Biden will also detail a plan to begin to refill the depleted oil cache when prices dip to $67-$72 per barrel, according to the officials.
Earlier this year Biden announced his plans to release 180 million barrels from the SPR. These last 15 million barrels are the last needed to complete that promise. Biden is being criticized for using the barrels. Some people are saying they should be used for things such as wars or natural disasters. But White House officials say this is needed and that the “SPR remains in strong shape.”
“Global crude oil supplies remain a challenge due in large part of the course of the ongoing stability caused by Russia’s actions in Ukraine,” a senior administration official said.
“The SPR still remains the largest strategic reserve with more than… 400 million barrels remaining. That is still a large amount of barrels,” the senior administration official added. “You’ll certainly see in the president’s remarks… that we remain, DOE remains, very able, very vigilant, If we need to deal with additional challenges with supply, with affordability, then we’ll have additional opportunity with the SPR.”
It is said that Biden may not be done tapping into the reserves. The plan is to refill the reserve at a lower price point.
Committing to refilling the SPR at a lower price will also give domestic energy producers confidence to produce more, the senior administration official said.
“The SPR will be part of helping to…moderate and stabilize price flows not only when prices are going high but when prices are going low,” the official said.
Hopefully, Biden’s plan works!
Source Fox News
