U.S. Oil Reserve Refill Pushed Back Seven Months

Crude oil deliveries to the strategic petroleum reserve will be delayed by seven months due to maintenance, the Department of Energy has said.

The previous administration had scheduled the addition of 15.8 million barrels into the SPR in the first five months of this year but since January, only 8.8 million barrels have been pumped into the reserve, Reuters noted in a report on the news.

“Due to site maintenance, the SPR rescheduled crude oil secured from previous solicitations, as well as exchanges, through December 2025,” a Department of Energy spokesperson told the publication.

The Biden administration released some 300 million barrels of oil from the SPR starting in 2021, amid high gasoline prices. The Department of the Treasury claims that these releases, along with coordinated international efforts, helped reduce gasoline prices by up to 40 cents per gallon in 2022. However, the releases depleted the SPR, sparking worry about supply security.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump said the new administration would quickly fill up the strategic petroleum reserve. “They put it all out because they thought they could keep gasoline prices down a little bit, just go past the election, and after that, they didn’t care,” the President said.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said earlier in the year that refilling the SPR will cost some $20 billion to refill the SPR and take several years. The Biden admin releases have pushed SPR levels to the lowest in 40 years. Its capacity is for 727 million barrels but the current amount stored in it is around 395 million barrels, per figures cited by Reuters.

Refilling the reserve is financially tricky because every time the news breaks that the U.S. federal government is buying oil for the SPR, prices tend to move higher, adding to the final tab for the refill.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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