US buys 6 million barrels of oil for Strategic Petroleum Reserve Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. has bought 6 million barrels of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for delivery through May 2025, the Energy Department said on Monday.

The purchases are part of an effort to replenish stocks after President Joe Biden ordered the largest-ever sale of reserves in 2022, 180 million barrels, in an effort to control fuel prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The US bought 3.5 million barrels from ExxonMobil (NYSE: ), 2 million from Shell ( LON: ) Trading Company and 500,000 from Macquarie Commodities Trading US, for a total cost of more than $411 million, the department said.

Sour crude, or the oil that many US refineries are designed to process, will be delivered at a rate of 1.5 million barrels per month from February to May next year at the Bayou Choctaw site in Louisiana.

After that, the department has enough money in its SPR procurement fund to buy about 2 million more barrels at about $75 a barrel. To continue filling the SPR after that, the department must ask Congress for more money and/or convince it to cancel future congressionally mandated sales.

The department previously worked with Congress nearly two years ago to help fill the SPR by canceling sales of 140 million barrels that had been mandated through 2027 to raise money for government programs.