US Energy Dept says continues to review SPR loan requests

Washington (Platts)--12Oct2004

The US Department of Energy will continue to review requests as they come in
from refiners looking for loans from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to make
up for Gulf of Mexico supplies lost due to last month's Hurricane Ivan, a DOE
spokeswoman said Tuesday. She did not say whether additional loan requests
were pending. Last week, Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow told reporters
that while DOE would look at any new requests, there were none outstanding.

News of DOE's decision to loan an additional 700,000 bbl from the SPR to
Premcor for use at the company's 190,000 b/d Memphis refinery was thus a
surprise. The newest loan brings Premcor's loans from the 670-mil bbl SPR to
1.2-mil bbl, and total Ivan-related SPR loans to 5.4-mil to five companies.
Nearly a month after Ivan ripped through the Gulf of Mexico, some 475,000 b/d
or 28% of crude production remains shut in, and Chris Oynes, Gulf of Mexico
regional director for the US Minerals Management Service, said Monday that 4%
of output may remain shut-in beyond six months from now.

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