The United States will draw 15 million additional barrels of oil from its reserves
To cope with soaring oil prices linked to the invasion of Ukraine, the United States will draw an additional 15 million barrels from its strategic reserves, a government official said on Tuesday.
This new puncture, which will be carried out in December, constitutes the last part of the program announced in the spring by Joe Biden, which planned to release 180 million barrels in total.
The news of this additional use, reported by several American media on Tuesday during the day, was enough to drop crude prices. The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the American reference variety, for delivery in November, thus fell by 3.08%, to end at 82.82 dollars.
Joe Biden does not rule out drawing even more on American reserves. “The President has asked the Ministry of Energy to be ready to sell more [pétrole tiré des réserves] this winter if necessary, because of Russia or other actions that would disrupt the market”the official told reporters.
At the same time, the American president plans to put in place a mechanism to replenish the strategic reserves in the long term. The US government will start buying back crude when the price of WTI drops to a range between $67 and $72. The administration plans to negotiate repurchase contracts at a price agreed in advance, through an auction process, which will limit the risks associated with price volatility, according to the official.
Since the beginning of September 2021, the United States has extracted more than 212 million barrels of strategic reserves, which are at their lowest since June 1984. The president also calls on oil companies to “immediately pass on lower energy prices to customers”according to the manager. “Keeping prices high when costs are falling is unacceptable”he insisted.