The White House says it had ordered 50 million barrels of oil released from the strategic reserve to bring down energy costs, in co-ordination with other countries including China.
The move is an effort to bring down rising fuel prices. Petrol in the US is averaging about 3.40 dollars (£2.55) a gallon, more than double the price a year ago, according to the American Automobile Association.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is an emergency stockpile to preserve access to oil in case of natural disasters, national security issues and other events.
Maintained by the Energy Department, the reserves are stored in caverns created in salt domes along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts. There are roughly 605 million barrels of sweet and sour petroleum in the reserve.
The Biden administration has argued that the supply of oil has not kept pace with demand as the global economy emerged from the pandemic, and the reserve is the right tool to help ease the problem.
The decision comes after weeks of diplomatic negotiations and the release will be taken in parallel other nations including India, Japan, South Korea and the UK – major energy consumers.
The US Department of Energy will make the oil available from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in two ways: 32 million barrels will be released in the next few months and will return to the reserve in the years ahead, and another 18 million barrels will be part of a sale of oil that Congress had previously authorised.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House would also keep tabs on the oil companies.
“We will continue to press oil companies who have made record profits and are overseeing what we consider to be price gouging out there when there’s a supply of oil or the price of oil is coming down and the price of gas is not coming down,” she said.
“It does not take an economic expert to know that’s a problem.”
