US Can Use Its Strategic Oil Reserve Over Coming Months, Deputy Energy Secretary Says

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States still has ability to use its strategic petroleum reserve over the coming months to fight high oil prices, Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk said on Tuesday.

"We still have some additional ability to use this strategic petroleum reserve over the coming weeks and months as needed," Turk said during a event hosted by Axios on global energy reliability.

The Biden administration has recently delivered more than 90% of the 180 million barrels it has already targeted from the nation’s oil reserve for domestic energy companies to turn into fuel that could help lower US pump prices.

The SPR is the world's largest supply of emergency crude, with the federally-owned oil reserve stored in underground salt caverns at four storage sites in the states of Texas and Louisiana. At its peak in 2009, the SPR had as much as 727 million barrels in storage. The current reserve level stands at just above 416 million barrels, the lowest since July 1984.

The bulk of it was drawn by the Biden administration in its bid to lower record high fuel domestic prices in the aftermath of the Western sanctions imposed on Russian oil imports over the Ukraine conflict. Gasoline at US pumps averaged a record high of $5 in mid-June and have come down since to below $3.90.