The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) announced a Notice of Sale of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

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Image: US DOE to sell crude oil from petroleum reserve. Photo: Courtesy of DEZALB/Pixabay.

DOE plans to draw down and sell crude oil from three SPR sites—Bryan Mound and Big Hill in Texas, and West Hackberry in Louisiana. This sale will fulfill requirements for Section 404 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (Public Law 114-74).

The Congressionally mandated sale is authorized in Section 404 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015.  The law authorizes the Secretary of Energy to draw down and sell up to $2 billion of SPR crude oil, for fiscal years (FYs) 2017 through 2020, to carry out an SPR modernization program. In FY 2019, the Secretary is authorized to sell up to $300 million worth of crude oil from the SPR to carry out the SPR Life Extension Phase II project—a component of the SPR modernization program, in accordance with the Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2019 (Public Law 115-244). The proceeds from this sale will be deposited into DOE’s Energy Security and Infrastructure Modernization Fund during FY 2019.

The Notice of Sale announced today includes a price-competitive sale of up to 6 million barrels of SPR crude. The sale will be conducted with crude oil from the following three SPR sites:

Up to 3 million barrels from Bryan Mound

Up to 1.5 million barrels from Big Hill

Up to 1.5 million barrels from West Hackberry.

DOE must receive bids no later than 2:00 p.m. Central Time on March 13, 2019. DOE will award contracts to successful offerors no later than March 15, 2019. Deliveries will take place in April and May of 2019.

Any company registered in the SPR’s Crude Oil Sales Offer Program is eligible to participate in SPR crude oil sales. Other interested companies may register through the SPR website’s Crude Oil Sales Offer Program.

Source: Company Press Release