US DOE awards contracts, issues fourth SPR crude oil sale

June 14, 2022

The US Department of Energy (DOE) on June 14 announced the fourth Notice of Sale of 45 million bbl of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Contracts awards for the May 24 sale have been announced.

OGJ editors

The US Department of Energy (DOE) on June 14 announced the fourth Notice of Sale of 45 million bbl of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

The sale is part of the Biden administration’s March initiative to release 1 million b/d of crude oil for 6 months to address the global supply disruption caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In addition, contracts have been awarded for the purchase of crude oil from the SPR announced in a May 24 notice of sale (OGJ Online, May 24, 2022). These barrels will be released June 15-July 31, 2022.

Combined with 3.3 million bbl of SPR crude oil scheduled for delivery in June from emergency exchanges authorized earlier this year, a total of 17 companies responded to the notice, submitting 124 bids for evaluation. Contracts were awarded to the following companies:

Atlantic Trading & Marketing Inc. (1.85 million bbl)
Chevron USA (900,000 bbl)
Equinor Marketing & Trading (2.05 million bbl)
ExxonMobil Oil Corp. (5.15 million bbl)
Marathon Petroleum Supply and Trading LLC (8.51 million bbl)
Motiva Enterprises LLC (4.20 million bbl)
Phillips 66 Co. (1.30 million bbl)
Shell Trading (US) Co. (700,000 bbl)
Valero Marketing and Supply Co. (11.65 million bbl)

Deliveries from the fourth Notice of Sale will take place Aug. 16-Sept. 30, 2022. DOE must receive bids for the first Notice of Sale no later than 10:00 a.m. Central Time on June 28, 2022. It will award contracts no later than July 8, 2022.

The May through July sales will be conducted with crude oil from SPR sites Bryan Mound in Texas (up to 8.25 million bbl), Big Hill in Texas (up to 15.5 million bbl), West Hackberry in Louisiana (up to 14 million bbl), and Bayou Choctaw in Louisiana (up to 7.25 million bbl).