The Biden Administration will release 1 million barrels of oil per day for the next six months from the U.S strategic reserves to help cut gas prices and fight inflation across the country.
The move was announced by the White House on Thursday. President Biden said that his plan would release about 180 million barrels of oil from reserves.
This release will further reduce the U.S reserve to around 388 million barrels, the lowest since 1984.
“The scale of this release is unprecedented: the world has never had a release of oil reserves at this 1 million per day rate for this length of time,” the White House said in a release. “This record release will provide a historic amount of supply to serve as bridge until the end of the year when domestic production ramps up.”
Also on Thursday President Biden announced that he would issue a directive to use the Defense Production Act “to secure America’s supply chains for the critical materials that go into batteries for electric vehicles” as part of his plan to reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels.
International benchmark Brent crude futures are down 0.37% at $104.32 per barrel at the time of writing this report. The U.S oil Western Texas Intermediate is also down 0.81% at $99.48.
Biden had banned the import of Russian oil to the U.S following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He blames Russian President Vladimir Putin for the spike in energy costs.
“Many people are no longer buying Russian oil around the world. I banned Russian-imported oil here in America, Republicans and Democrats in Congress called for it and support it. It was the right thing to do,” Biden said.
“But as I said at the time, it’s going to come with a cost,” the president added. “As Russian oil comes off the global market, supply of oil drops, and prices are rising. Now Putin’s price hike is hitting Americans at the pump.”
The U.S domestic gasoline national average price stands at $4.23 per gallon up from $2.87 a year ago.
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.