What is the SPR? The history behind the emergency oil stash Biden is tapping
Global News
Joe Biden plans to release millions of barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
President Joe Biden on Thursday will announce the release of a million barrels of crude oil every day for the next six months from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help cool oil prices, the largest such release from the stockpile in history.
The move is being undertaken because oil prices have spiked since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 and subsequent sanctions slapped on Russia by the United States and its allies.
The latest amount of U.S. oil release would make 180 million barrels of oil available, or the equivalent to about two days of global demand, and would mark the third time the United States has tapped the SPR in the past six months.
It is also possible that the International Energy Agency, the world’s energy watchdog of which the United States is a member, may also release barrels when IEA countries meet on Friday.
The 31-member IEA, representing industrialized nations but not Russia, presided over the fourth coordinated oil release in its history on March 1 of over 60 million barrels of crude – its largest yet.
As part of the IEA’s March release, the United States committed to release 30 million barrels of SPR oil.
Before that, Washington pledged in November to release 50 million barrels of SPR oil, though an expected move in tandem from China did not materialize, as prices surged along with demand recovery for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The United States created the SPR in 1975 after the Arab oil embargo spiked gasoline prices and damaged the U.S. economy. Presidents have tapped the stockpile to calm oil markets during war or when hurricanes hit oil infrastructure along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
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