The US Department of Energy will commence a sale of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as soon as January, DOE’s Fossil Energy Office (FEO) announced on Dec. 13.
A continuing federal budget resolution, which became law on Dec. 10, included a provision to allow DOE to sell as much as $375.4 million in crude from the reserve as the first tranche of oil sales designed to fund operational improvements to ensure the long-term infrastructure integrity under the SPR Modernization program, FEO said.
Section 404 of the 2015 Bipartisan Budget Act included authorization for funding SPR modernization through the sale of as much as $2 billion worth of SPR crude over four consecutive fiscal years starting in fiscal 2017, it noted.
Any company registered in the SPR’s Crude Oil Sales Offer Program is eligible to participate in SPR crude oil sales. Companies may register by going to www.spr.doe.gov and then following the instructions for registering, FEO said.
With its 695 million-bbl inventory, the reserve remains the world’s largest emergency crude oil supply, it noted. The federally owned oil stocks are stored in underground salt caverns at four storage sites in Texas and Louisiana.
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