U.S. funding bill cancels 'certain' SPR sales mandated by Congress

Reuters
Updated ·1 min read
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FILE PHOTO: An oil storage tank and crude oil pipeline equipment is seen during a tour by the Department of Energy at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Freeport

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The government funding bill U.S. lawmakers are trying to pass cancels "certain" congressionally mandated sales of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a summary showed on Tuesday.

Congress mandated in previous laws a sale of about 147 million barrels of oil from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2027.

"Cancels certain future Congressionally mandated sales, reducing the technical burden on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve system," said a summary of supplementary legislation on aid for Ukraine released with the text of the $1.66 trillion funding bill.

ClearView Energy Partners, a nonpartisan research group, said in a note to clients that the language in the legislation indicates that about 140 million barrels in sales will be canceled. The bill retains sales of about 26 million barrels of oil from the SPR in fiscal 2023, ClearView said.

The Biden administration is beginning to buy back oil for the reserve after it sold 180 million barrels from the SPR to counter high oil prices in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That sale shrunk levels in the SPR to about 380 million barrels, their lowest since 1984, raising concerns about energy security.

The U.S. Senate planned to take its initial vote on the funding bill on Tuesday as lawmakers scrambled to pass the measure and avert a possible partial government shutdown beginning on Saturday.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Mark Porter and Jonathan Oatis)