United States Will Release 50 Million Barrels from Strategic Petroleum Reserve

As a price-cutting measure, the White House announced Tuesday that the Department of Energy will release 50 million barrels from its strategic petroleum reserve, in coordination with China, India, South Korea, Japan and England.

This in an effort to “address the mismatch between demand and supply,”

More than 600 million barrels of crude oil are currently stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve of the United States in case of natural disasters or other national security threats.

The reserves are held in salt dome caverns along the Gulf Coasts of Texas and Louisiana.

More than 32 million barrels will be released in the next few months, while the remaining 18 million barrels will be an acceleration of the release of barrels that had already been planned beyond that.

“As we come out of an unprecedented global economic shutdown, oil supply has not kept up with demand, forcing working families and businesses to pay the price,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. “This action underscores the president’s commitment to using the tools available to bring down costs for working families and to continue our economic recovery.”

Original source material for this article taken from here