Bush suspends crude deliveries into US SPR through fall

Washington (Platts)--25Apr2006

US President George W. Bush said Tuesday he had directed the Department
of Energy to suspend crude deposits into the nation's Strategic Petroleum
Reserve temporarily in order to keep more oil on the market amid rising
gasoline prices.

Bush, speaking to the Renewable Fuels Association in a live televised
address, said deliveries to the SPR, which currently holds 687.5 million
barrels of crude, would be deferred until the fall.

"We'll leave a little more oil on the market," Bush said. "Every little
bit helps." Some 2.1 million barrels of scheduled SPR crude deliveries will be
halted, a DOE spokesman said.

That figure represents the balance remaining to be repaid from the 13.2
million barrels of crude loaned to refiners from the 727 million barrel
capacity SPR in the aftermath of last year's hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the
spokesman said. Six refiners who were short of crude supplies after the storms
took oil from the SPR in exchange for a promise to return that crude plus
additional barrels at a later date.

Bush made the comments on the SPR during a wide-ranging address on energy
in which he laid out steps the US could take to combat higher oil and gasoline
prices.

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