Trump Turns to Venezuelan Oil to Refill US Strategic Petroleum Reserve

According to a Wall Street Journal report carried by Ecoiran via Entekhab, US President Donald Trump said he plans to use Venezuelan oil, which Washington will access under a deal with a private company, to refill the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The move follows earlier complaints from US Energy Secretary Chris Wright that the Republican led Congress has refused to allocate the billions of dollars needed to refill the reserve. The report said the US has already drawn down more than 128 million barrels from the SPR's underground salt caverns on the Gulf of Mexico coast, leaving the reserve at its lowest level since the fall of 1982. A White House official said the US could add 50 million barrels a year to the reserve if the partner company expands its operations as planned. Joseph Majkut, an energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), described the deal as a mechanism to both revive Venezuela's oil industry and bring oil into the United States.