Liz Hampton
PLATTVILLE, Colo., March 9 (Reuters) – The United States is considering coordinating oil sales from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve with those of other countries as oil prices soar during the war with Iran, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Monday.
Wright also said the United States has “some other options” to allow more sales of Russian oil stored in tankers in Asian waters. Late last week, for example, Washington issued a 30-day exemption allowing Russian crude oil currently stuck at sea to continue being sold to India.
“We are discussing a coordinated release of SPR,” Wright told reporters gathered at a natural gas plant in Colorado. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, located off the coast of Texas and Louisiana, holds 415 million barrels of oil, more than the world uses in four days.
Global and domestic oil futures closed on Monday at their highest levels since August 2022 as a U.S.-Israeli-led war grounded tankers and shut down Middle East oil production.
Western energy regulator the International Energy Agency called on Monday for a coordinated release of oil, and G7 countries agreed to closely monitor developments in energy markets. No release has been announced yet.
IEA chief Fatih Birol told G7 finance ministers on Monday that the group’s members hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency oil stocks, with another 600 million barrels of industrial stockpiles held by governments.
Wright said the U.S. is not considering limiting U.S. energy exports to control prices.
(Reporting by Liz Hampton; Writing by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Mark Porter and David Gregorio)