AP
The United States has enough volumes of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to address any supply problems and is monitoring markets on how to use them, said Amos Hochstein, energy adviser to President Joe Biden.
The SPR remains near 40-year lows after Biden directed the largest-ever sale of 180 million barrels of the reserve following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Biden administration recently stopped buying back oil for the reserve as crude has been trading above the $79 per barrel price it wants to pay to buy oil.
“We have been replenishing the SPR for the past few months. I think we have enough supply in the SPR to address any kind of concern in the economy if we need it,” Hochstein said on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Global Conference.
“For now I think we will continue to monitor the markets and if we need to use the SPR the president has shown his willingness to use it to support the American economy,” he added.
Last month, the Energy Department said it had canceled the purchase of about 3 million barrels of crude oil for the SPR due to rising oil prices. The SPR currently has about 367 million barrels. The largest amount of oil it ever had was almost 727 million barrels in 2009.
Three weeks ago, in a move environmentalists called a betrayal, President Biden's administration approved the construction of a deep-water oil export terminal off the coast of Texas that will be the largest of its kind in the United States.
The project by Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners will cost $1.8 billion and received a deepwater port license this week from the Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration, marking the final step of a five-year federal review.
