WASHINGTON, DC�The US Department of Energy said Friday three firms have submitted winning bids to provide storage for a 2 million bbl home heating oil reserve in the Northeast.
President Bill Clinton has ordered DOE to establish a temporary reserve by October, and has asked Congress to make the reserve permanent.
Equiva Trading Co. will supply 500,000 bbl of storage space at its Motiva facility in New Haven, Conn.; Morgan Stanley Capital Group will provide 500,000 bbl at its Wyatt facility in New Haven; and Amerada Hess Corp. will store 1 million bbl at the First Reserve Terminal at Woodbridge, NJ.
The department had said preference would be given to storage with the greatest distribution flexibility, including transportation by pipelines, barges, ships, and trucks.
In early September, DOE plans to announce winning bids for supply of the home heating oil to be stored in the tanks.
Suppliers of the storage and the distillate will be paid with crude oil from the West Hackberry, La., Strategic Petroleum Reserve site. Winning bids will be those requiring the least volume of crude.
DOE has said a 2-million bbl Northeast distillate reserve will provide relief from weather-related shortages for about 10 days, the time ships require to bring heating oil from Gulf of Mexico refineries to the Northeast.