U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday announced a plan to release one million barrels of crude oil a day from the strategic petroleum reserve over the next six months.
The release from May is the largest release ever from the U.S. emergency oil reserve.
Biden challenged oil companies to drill more in an attempt to bring down gasoline prices that have soared during Russia’s war with Ukraine.
“This is a moment of consequence and peril for the world, and pain at the pump for American families,” Biden said at an event at the White House.
“It’s also a moment of patriotism,” Biden said, as he asked oil company executives to serve their customers and American families, instead of the investors they have rewarded with billions of dollars in dividends.
He also called on Congress to make companies pay a fee if they are sitting thousands of unused oil and gas leases and wells on public lands.
Biden’s 180 million-barrel release is equivalent to about two days of global demand, and marks the third time Washington has tapped the SPR in the past six months.
