The U.S. Department of Energy is walking back previous comments that it was considering a release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and a ban on crude oil exports, Bloomberg’s Javier Blas reported on Twitter.
According to Blas, the DoE isn’t considering tapping the SPR “at this time”.
The news comes shortly after Goldman Sachs estimated that if the DoE released oil from the SPR, it would likely be limited to just 60 million barrels—posing a $3 downside risk to its year-end $90 barrel Brent forecast.
A White House press briefing took a similar no-SPR tone.
The Biden Administration will not make any predictions about releasing the SPR to alleviate high gasoline prices, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at the daily briefing on Wednesday.
Psaki instead focused on the climate crisis, commenting on the fact that the matter was so urgent that it could not wait any longer.
“I’m not going to make any prediction of that from here.”
The press secretary noted that the Administration took steps in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, including by authorizing exchanges from the SPR with oil and refining firms.
“We’ve also taken steps into — including engaging with members of OPEC,” Psaki said.
“But I’m not going to make any other predictions at this point in time. We’re continuously monitoring. We’ll look to take additional steps as needed,” she added.
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