The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy today announced contracts have been awarded from the recent sale of Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) crude oil.

A Notice of Sale for a price-competitive sale of up to 8 million barrels of light sweet crude oil was issued by DOE on January 9, 2017.  A total of 21 companies responded to the Notice of Sale, submitting 157 bids for evaluation, with contracts awarded to Shell Trading (US) Company and Phillips 66 Company for the total sale of 6.4 million barrels of crude oil.  Of this amount, 1.7 million barrels will be sold from the SPR’s Bryan Mound site, 3 million barrels from the Big Hill site, and 1.7 million barrels from the West Hackberry site.  Deliveries will be scheduled to take place in March and April, with early deliveries in February accommodated to the maximum extent possible.

Section 404 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 authorized the sale of SPR crude oil, over the course of four years, to generate the $2 billion needed to carry out an SPR Modernization program.  The revenue from this sale will fund necessary operational improvements to ensure the long-term integrity of the SPR infrastructure, as part of the SPR Modernization program.