You guys remember this from way back in 2022?
The Energy Department plans to announce the launch of the long-term buyback plan on Thursday to show officials are serious about eventually refilling the SPR, which has been drained by the war in Ukraine and sales mandated by Congress to raise revenue.
But that will take time. Delivery of the first tranche of 60 million barrels will take place in unspecified future years, the Energy Department official said, adding it will be paid for with revenue received from ongoing emergency sales.
Huge emphasis on "eventually" there.
Overall, the president ordered DOE to release a total of about 260 million barrels of oil from the SPR in 2021 and 2022.
That was mostly done to slow the increase of gas prices.
And while the Energy Department has refilled the reserve ever so slightly, we now have this in 2024:
We have only 17 days of emergency petroleum and now we're canceling orders of the product because prices are too high.
The Biden administration has abruptly canceled a plan announced last month to purchase up to three million barrels of oil as part of its effort to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
The SPR — which Congress established for emergency situations — currently contains 363.6 million barrels of oil, a 43% decline from January 2021 when President Biden took office, federal data shows. Biden began depleting the reserve in late 2021 to combat high fuel prices.
The Department of Energy said that while it remains committed to refilling the SPR, it would pull back its most recent solicitation for oil amid increasing prices. On March 14, DOE's Office of Petroleum Reserves announced the solicitation for three million barrels of oil to be delivered in August and September to its Bayou Choctaw site in Louisiana, one of four major SPR storage facilities.
"Keeping the taxpayer's interest at the forefront, we will not award for the Bayou Choctaw SPR site in August and September, and will continue to solicit available capacity as market conditions allow," a DOE spokesperson said.
Yeah, don't worry about it, Joe. I'm sure when the Orange Man gets back he'll start filling it up again for ya.
Another reminder: Remember when Chuck Schumer called it a bailout for big oil when President Trump filled the reserve with cheap oil?
The man was just doing the right thing. And in the long run he saved us all thousands on gasoline by storing it there for Joe to use.
But now we are here with 17 days of petroleum on reserve for emergencies — just over half of what we had in 2020 — and Joe Biden is canceling petroleum orders because he'd rather spend money flying illegal immigrants into our country.
What a disgrace!
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