The United States Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, announced on Monday that the United States intends to replenish its strategic oil reserves by the end of 2024, after its reserves fell to their lowest levels in history in 2023.

Following the Russian-Ukrainian war, US President Joe Biden announced an unprecedented withdrawal from oil reserves, a move criticized by Republicans.

The United States had consumed about 274 million barrels of reserves between September 2021 and July 2023; As a result, the reserve fell to its lowest level in 40 years. It is noteworthy that Washington established the reserve in the 1970s as an emergency reserve after the 1973 energy crisis.

The US government bought back oil to boost reserves in June 2023, and in the subsequent nine months, the strategic oil reserve rose by an estimated 14.7 million barrels, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

The US Secretary of Energy announced that the level of reserves had been increased by about 30 million barrels since last summer, and attributed the credit for this to other transactions that include recovering quantities of crude oil that were loaned to major industrialists.

As I mentioned at the Sierra Energy Week conference in Houston, the United States will essentially be back to where it was by the end of this year.

Oil stocks will be boosted by another nearly 140 million barrels that were originally expected to be sold between 2023 and 2027 after canceling sales set by Congress.

Oil prices have continued to remain relatively stable since last fall, after increasing following the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Members of the OPEC+ alliance said earlier this month that they would extend the decline in production by about 2.2 million barrels per day in the second quarter in order to support prices.

Granholm added that the Biden administration's record reveals that "while we can maintain energy security, we can also respond responsibly to the realities of market changes."