**The United States Purchases 4.65 Million Barrels of Oil to Refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve**
**ExxonMobil to Provide 3.9 Million Barrels from the Contract**
The U.S. Department of Energy announced on Monday that it has secured a contract to purchase 4.65 million barrels of crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to be delivered to the Bayou Choctaw site in Louisiana over the last three months of the year.
The department added that ExxonMobil will supply 3.9 million barrels under the contract, while Macquarie Commodities Trading will provide the remainder. The average purchase price for the oil is approximately $76.92 per barrel.
This purchase is part of the latest efforts to refill the U.S. emergency oil stockpile following a record drawdown of 180 million barrels in 2022. This drawdown aimed to control gasoline prices, which had surged to over five dollars per gallon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, it also reduced the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest level in 40 years.
The Department of Energy stated that it has since repurchased a total of 43.25 million barrels at an average price of nearly $77 per barrel, after selling the oil at around $95 per barrel in 2022. This move, it claimed, represents a “good deal for taxpayers.”
By/radwa sherif ✏️✏️📚