Strategic Petroleum Reserve sales set to start

Crude oil sales from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve along the Gulf of Mexico are set to start this month, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration. On Wednesday (Jan. 25), the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy awarded contracts to sell up to $375.4 million in crude oil from the reserve. It was the first of several planned sales “totaling nearly 190 million barrels,” between 2017 and 2025. Congress approved the sales over the past two years.

The reserve is at about 97% capacity, holding more than 695 million barrels of crude oil and is the “largest stockpile of government-owned emergency crude oil in the world.” With a capacity of up to 713.5 million barrels, the reserve was designed “to help alleviate significant oil supply reductions from occurrences such as major geopolitical events, severe weather, unplanned production curtailments, transport disruptions and delivery outages,” according to the EIA.

As a member of the International Energy Agency, the United States must maintain at least 90 days of “net import coverage.” The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has about 145 days of import coverage, and commercial stockpiles hold another 489 million barrels, or about 102 days of import coverage.