(Adds detail, background)
May 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy said on
Monday it will purchase 3 million barrels of crude oil for the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve for delivery in August, and asked
that offers be submitted by May 31.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm had signaled to
lawmakers late last week that her department could start
repurchasing oil for the stockpile soon, after a record sale
last year during a spike in prices that pushed the level of the
reserve to the lowest since 1983.
The new purchase would be for sour crude oil delivered to
the Big Hill SPR site in Texas sometime during the month of
August, according to the announcement.
The Biden administration last year conducted the largest
ever sale from the SPR of 180 million barrels, part of a
strategy to stabilize soaring oil markets and combat high pump
prices in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The sale angered Republicans who accused the
administration of leaving the U.S. with too thin a supply buffer
to adequately respond to a future supply crisis.
The sales brought the SPR inventory to around 372
million barrels, the lowest since 1983, amounting to just under
20 days of cover at current U.S. consumption rates.
The administration has said it would start to buy oil
back into the reserve when prices are consistently at or below
$67 to $72 per barrel, well-below the level at which the oil had
been sold, so that taxpayers can get some benefit.
U.S. crude prices were around $71 a barrel on
Monday.
Granholm last month had signaled that repurchases would
happen closer to the end of the year, after maintenance on two
of the reserve's four sites on the coasts of Texas and
Louisiana.
(Writing by Richard Valdmanis
Editing by Chris Reese and Marguerita Choy)
Reuters Messaging:
richard.valdmanis.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
