DOE applauds directive to purchase oil for Strategic Petroleum Reserves

The U.S. Department of Energy commended President Donald Trump’s declaration of a National Emergency for the COVID-19 coronavirus and his directive to Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette to purchase oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserves.

“This afternoon, President Trump declared a National Emergency concerning COVID-19, and directed Secretary Brouillette to purchase oil for storage in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to provide relief to the American Energy industry,” DOE spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said.

On Friday, March 13, the Energy Secretary issued a memo to Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg to immediately initiate an expedited process for this purchase of crude oil owned and produced in the United States.

“The Department is currently working to develop a solicitation for the purchase of oil, which we will issue as soon as possible. Secretary Brouillette applauds the President’s continued bold and decisive action to combat the worldwide impacts of COVID-19,” the DOPE spokeswoman said.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was established primarily to reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products and to carry out obligations of the United States under the international energy program. The reserves are stored in underground salt caverns at four sites along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. The authorized storage capacity of the reserves is 713.5 million barrels. It is a deterrent to oil import cutoffs and a key tool in foreign policy. Trump said last week that he’d like to fill the reserves to the top of its capacity.