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Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says the US’s crude oil stores will be opened.
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By Cathy Guiles
WORLD NEWS EDITOR
President Clinton directed the Department of Energy Sept. 22 to exchange 30 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to fend off predicted winter shortages of oil used for heating homes.
Under the terms of the exchange, companies that receive the oil will be required to return the amount of oil they obtained plus additional quantities that have yet to be determined to the Reserve in fall of next year.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said last Friday, “We need to make sure that American families keep warm this winter…The President will do everything within the power of the federal government to ensure that Americans have the fuel they need to heat their homes. It’s the right time to do this” (U.S. Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy Web Site, Sept. 22, 2000).
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, located beneath the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in two sites in Texas and two in Louisiana, contains approximately 571 million barrels of crude oil stored in caverns carved from salt domes to be used in case of an energy shortage or emergency.
In his remarks to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee Wednesday, Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Robert S. Kripowicz said, “These domes are common through the Gulf region, and provide the most advanced, lowest cost, and environmentally friendly method of long term petroleum storage” (U.S. Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy Web Site, Sept. 27, 2000).
Oil prices around the world dropped significantly yesterday following Clinton’s announcement. In London, oil futures briefly went below $30 a barrel for the first time since August. U.S. prices decreased by over $1 a barrel, to $31.57, in New York. Prices may also drop in the Middle East.
Vice President Al Gore, who last week urged Clinton to release government oil supplies, credited the administration’s move for the price drop.
“Of course, we’ll take it one step at a time,” Gore said. “But so far, so good” (The Baltimore Sun, Sept. 26, 2000).
Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush criticized Gore’s encouragement of the decision, saying Gore was using the oil stockpiles as his own “strategic political reserve” to benefit his campaign. “It’s a bad idea, because it could create a long-term security issue for the United States of America, and it’s an idea that I think is spurred by short-term political gains,” Bush said (The Baltimore Sun, Sept. 26, 2000).
The last president to order use of the Reserve was President George Bush during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. |
