Saudi Arabia: Releasing Oil From SPR Was The US’ Own Choice

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, recently said that It is up to the United States Administration to release crude oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

At the end of November, President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. would release 50 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to to help lowering high gasoline prices in conjunction with other major oil-consuming nations.

The White House also announced that SPR releases from other major energy consumers, including China, South Korea, Japan, India, and the UK, would be coordinated as well.

However, this decision did not help lowering the price of crude oil, having little effect on domestic gasoline prices in the United States.

Around seven million barrels of crude oil from the SPR have already been distributed by the The U.S. Department of Energy to companies. A company who recently acquire two million barrels of oil is ExxonMobil, as part of the Biden Administration’s attempts to increase fuel supply and cut gasoline costs.

Japan, China, and South Korea are also joining the U.S in providing oil from strategic reserves in the future. South Korea expects to release a 3.17 million barrels of oil from its stockpiles in the first quarter of 2022, meanwhile Japan plans to sale 629,000 barrels of crude oil from its national reserves in February. China agreed to release oil closer to the Lunar New Year on February 1. 

Original source material for this article taken from here