Liam Denning, Columnist

It’s Time for Biden to Unleash His Mega Oil Trade

The President has promised to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at around $70, putting a floor under the price. Buying now will give oil producers the confidence to drill.

December 12, 2022 at 2:08 PM UTC

By Liam Denning

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

An aerial view of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve storage at the Bryan Mound site in Freeport, Texas.
Photographer: Brandon Bell/Getty Images North America

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Is this consistent enough Joe?

President Joe Biden’s administration outlined a new rule in October whereby the Department of Energy could buy oil for future delivery — most likely 2024 — at fixed prices to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The mooted price range is $67 to $72 per barrel. Then, earlier this month, Biden’s energy security adviser Amos Hochstein appeared to set a new condition by saying the DoE would solicit for those barrels when oil prices were trading “consistently” around $70.