Biden admin. announces sale of additional 20M oil barrels from strategic petroleum reserve

Alexandra Brinkley

August 7, 2022

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Editor’s Note: This is the official news release from the U.S. Department of Energy

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) today announced an additional Notice of Sale of up to 20 million additional barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). This Notice of Sale is part of President Biden’s announcement on March 31, 2022 authorizing the sale of crude oil from the SPR to address the significant market supply disruption caused by Putin’s war on Ukraine and help lower energy costs for American families.

The President’s announcement called to release one million barrels of SPR crude oil per day over six months. This historic release of SPR crude has provided a record amount of crude oil supply to the U.S. economy and will continue until the end of October 2022.

DOE plans to release, from the SPR, up to 2.8 million barrels of sour crude oil and 17.2 million barrels of sweet crude oil, totaling 20 million barrels with deliveries from September 16 until October 21, 2022. DOE must receive bids for this notice no later than 10:00 a.m. Central Time on August 2, 2022. Contracts will be awarded to successful offerors no later than August 11, 2022.

The sale will be conducted with crude oil from the following three SPR sites:

Up to 7.6 million barrels from Big Hill
Up to 9.6 million barrels from West Hackberry
Up to 2.8 million barrels from Bryan Mound

The SPR is the world’s largest supply of emergency crude oil, and the federally owned oil stocks are stored in underground salt caverns at four storage sites in Texas and Louisiana. The SPR has a long history of protecting the economy and American livelihoods in times of emergency oil shortages.

Any company registered in the SPR’s Crude Oil Sales Offer Program is eligible to participate in this and other SPR crude oil sales. Other interested companies may register through the SPR’s website: Crude Oil Sales Offer Program.