DOE says it has purchased 40M barrels for strategic oil reserve

By Ben Lefebvre | 07/30/2024 06:46 AM EDT

The purchases will help replace the volumes that President Joe Biden sold to calm fuel markets following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Department of Energy on Monday said it had purchased about 40 million barrels of oil to help refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and replace the volumes that President Joe Biden sold in 2022 to calm fuel markets after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Details: The DOE said the purchases were done at an average of $77 dollars a barrel, well below the average of $95 a barrel at which it sold oil out of the SPR two years ago.

Earlier this year, DOE announced it had canceled previously planned sales that called for auctioning off 140 million barrels of oil through 2027.

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DOE does not plan to make another purchase of oil to fill the SPR this year, a senior administration official said during a call with reporters.

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