US seeks to buy more than 3 mln barrels of oil for SPR, Energy Department says

The U.S. Energy Department is seeking to purchase up to 3.3 million barrels of oil to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The SPR is still near 40-year lows after President Joe Biden directed the largest ever sale of 180 million barrels from the reserve after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The Biden administration recently stopped buying back oil for the reserve as crude has been trading above the $79 per barrel price it wants to pay to purchase oil.

Biden’s energy adviser, Amos Hochstein, said on Monday that the U.S. emergency oil stash is sufficient to address any supply concerns and the administration is monitoring markets on how to use it.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Timothy Gardner; editing by Susan Heavey and David Ljunggren)