The US Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded 13.4 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to address the high oil prices.
The SPR is an emergency stockpile of petroleum in underground salt caverns at four major storage facilities in the Gulf Coast region of the US – two in Texas and two in Louisiana.
It was created in 1975 after the Arab oil embargo spiked gas prices and damaged the US economy.
The DOE has approved seven additional exchanges of the crude oil for release from the SPR, with exchange contracts awarded to Shell Trading US Company, Trafigura Trading, Phillips 66 Company, Macquarie Commodities Trading, Chevron USA, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation and BP Products North America.
Over the last two months, the Biden Administration has approved the release of 40 million barrels of SPR crude oil, with the latest being the second largest crude oil exchange in US history.
As with all exchanges, companies that receive SPR crude oil through the exchange must agree to return the amount received, as well as an additional amount, depending on the length of time in which they hold the oil.
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