More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic US emergency reserve release to lower domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month, even as US gasoline and diesel prices hit record highs, according to data and sources.
The US President Joe Biden's moves to lower record pump prices haven't hurt the impact of the export of crude and fuel. Biden called for gasoline suppliers to cut prices on Saturday, drawing criticism from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve SPR releases 1 million barrels per day through October. The SPR last month fell to the lowest since 1986, and the flow is draining. The US crude futures CLc 1 are above $100 per barrel and gasoline and diesel prices are above $5 a gallon in one-fifth of the nation. US officials said that if the SPR had not been tapped, oil prices could be higher.
A Department of Energy spokeswoman said the emergency releases helped ensure the stable supply of crude oil, because the SPR is an important energy security tool to address global crude oil supply disruptions.
According to US Customs data, Phillips 66, the fourth largest US oil refiner, shipped about 470,000 barrels of sour crude from the Big Hill SPR storage site in Texas to Trieste, Italy. Trieste is home to a pipeline that sends oil to refineries in central Europe.
Atlantic Trading Marketing ATMI, the French oil major TotalEnergies' arm, exported 2 cargoes of 560,000 barrels each, according to the data.
Phillips 66 didn't say anything about trading activity. ATMI did not respond to a request for comment.
An industry source said that cars of SPR crude were headed to the Netherlands and to a Reliance refinery in India. A third cargo was headed for China, another source said.
A cargo of crude from the West Hackberry SPR site in Louisiana was due to be exported in July, according to a shipping source.
Matt Smith, lead oil analyst at Kpler, said that crude and fuel prices would likely be higher if the SPR releases hadn't happened, but at the same time, it isn't really having the effect that was assumed.
The US crude inventories are the lowest since 2004 because of the fact that refineries are near peak levels. The most utilization of refineries in the US Gulf Coast was at 97.9% in the last three and a half years.