US offers 40 million barrels from Strategic Petroleum Reserve to cool fuel prices
The Trump administration has offered to lend energy companies 40 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, repeating a June offer that saw firms borrow just 500,000 barrels.
The Trump administration said on Tuesday it is offering to loan energy companies 40 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), in an effort to control soaring fuel prices that have jumped on the widening war with Iran and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The offer repeats an almost identical one made in June. The administration then offered to loan the last 40 million barrels from its International Energy Agency agreement, but later revealed companies had only agreed to borrow about 500,000 barrels — barely over 1 per cent of the barrels on offer.
The United States agreed in March to loan 172 million barrels of oil from the SPR as part of a wider deal with about 30 countries in the International Energy Agency to release 400 million barrels, aiming to calm oil markets shaken by seven months of war.
Brent crude has been trading around $105–108 a barrel this week after President Trump rejected Iran’s seven-day peace proposal on Saturday, with US government borrowing costs and Treasury yields climbing on renewed inflation fears.
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