The U.S. has sufficient supply of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to address any supply concerns and is monitoring markets on how to use it, Amos Hochstein, President Joe Biden’s energy adviser, said on Monday.
The SPR is still near 40-year lows after 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.
“We have been replenishing into the SPR for the last several months. I think we have sufficient supply in the SPR to address any kind of concern in the economy if we need it,” Hochstein said on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Global Conference.
“For now I think we’ll continue to monitor markets and if we need to use the SPR the president has shown a willingness to use it to support the U.S. economy.”
Last month the Energy Department said it canceled the purchase of about 3 million barrels of crude for the SPR due to rising oil prices. The SPR currently has about 367 million barrels. The most oil it ever held was nearly 727 million barrels in 2009.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom, Timothy Gardner; Editing by Leslie Adler and David Gregorio)