Ha Ha... Will have NO EFFECT.. So stupid!

US to release 172 million barrels of oil from strategic reserve to combat energy price hike

The Trump administration move is in conjunction with the International Energy Agency action and comes as shipments from the Persian Gulf remain constrained.

By James Bikales and Carlos Anchondo

The Trump administration said Wednesday the U.S. will release 172 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, its boldest attempt yet to bring down oil prices that have spiked since the U.S. launched its war against Iran.

“We’ll do that, and then we’ll fill it up,” President Donald Trump told Cincinnati news station Local 12 in an interview Wednesday afternoon. “I filled it up once, and I’ll fill it up again. But right now, we’ll reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices down.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced later Wednesday that the drawdowns would begin next week and take about 120 days.

The U.S. release is part of an effort by the 32 members of the International Energy Agency — which include the U.S., Japan, Germany, the U.K. and France — to release 400 million barrels of oil held in emergency reserves, the largest such effort in the body’s history.

Trump, who spent years attacking the Biden administration for tapping the SPR in 2022, touted the IEA effort at a rally in Kentucky on Wednesday, saying it will “substantially reduce the oil prices as we end this threat to America and this threat to the world.”

“We don’t want to leave early, do we?” Trump said. “We got to finish the job.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had said earlier Wednesday afternoon that Trump had yet to decide whether to join the international effort.

The Trump administration has initially ruled out utilizing the reserve, a series of underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana. But Iranian attacks against oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz have sent crude prices spiraling to four-year highs as vessels stop traversing the key waterway connecting Middle Eastern oil fields to the global market.

The DOE announcement had little impact on U.S. crude oil futures prices, which extended their gains in evening trading to sit near $94 a barrel. Iran attacked several more ships in the Gulf Wednesday and Iranian military officials warned the world to get ready for $200 oil, according to Reuters.

The U.S. oil stockpile currently holds 415 million barrels, according to the Energy Department, making it less than 59 percent full. The U.S. consumes around 20 million barrels of crude a day, similar to the amount that typically flows through the Strait of Hormuz each day.

The Trump administration only added modest amounts of oil back into the reserve after the Biden administration tapped it to calm markets after Russia invaded Ukraine.

A part of the storage caverns also suffered damage as a result of those Biden-era drawdowns, which has slowed the effort to refill it.

Wright said in his statement that the Biden administration had left the SPR “drained and damaged.” DOE has already arranged to replace its drawdown with 200 million barrels within the next year, 20 percent more than it plans to draw down, he said.

“President Trump promised to protect America’s energy security by managing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve responsibly and this action demonstrates his commitment to that promise,” Wright said.

Appearing on Fox News Wednesday night, Wright predicted that shipping through the Strait of Hormuz would resume “in the next few weeks,” well before the U.S. completed the planned SPR releases.

“I think we will have the Straits of Hormuz open well before then,” he said. “Exactly when? I can’t say, but we are working 24 hours of every day to get there.”

The reserve is designed to be able to release up to 4.4 million barrels of oil per day within 13 days of a presidential decision, according to the Energy Department. But analysts have said the actual flow rate may be far lower — perhaps 2 million barrels a day — due to physical constraints.