Reuters, Washington, December 1-US Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk told Reuters on Wednesday that if global energy prices fall sharply, the Biden administration may adjust the timing of its plan to release strategic crude oil inventories.

In a video interview with Reuters at the next meeting, Turk added that other consumer countries that have agreed to cooperate with the United States to release strategic reserves to control prices can also adjust time when needed.

"I think each country will make a decision based on what is useful and beneficial to their consumers and where the price is," he said.

Turk added that the government is still considering the merits of some legislators' proposals to ban crude oil exports to control domestic consumer fuel prices. The final decision will be made by President Joe Biden.

A spokesperson for the Department of Energy said after an interview that the department currently has no plans to change the timing or scale of inventory release.

The Biden administration announced last month that it will release 50 million barrels of oil from the SPR, and deliveries will begin in January at the earliest. This move will be accompanied by a small amount of emissions from China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom to help reduce consumer energy costs.

The unusual agreement reached between oil-consuming countries to coordinate the release of stocks aims to curb soaring energy prices. Previously, OPEC and its allies rejected Washington’s repeated demands to speed up production as the world began to shake off the pandemic. Petroleum meets the ever-increasing demand.

However, due to concerns that the Omicron variant of the new coronavirus will spread and trigger a widespread lockdown, thereby reducing global energy demand, oil prices have since fallen.

After the Turk’s comments, US oil prices fell by 61 cents to $65.57 per barrel.

"The President has given us flexibility," Turk, one of several government officials who meet regularly to discuss energy security issues, said of the United States' plans to release strategic reserves.

“So if oil prices fall sharply, if the pain of pumps that consumers in our country and around the world are currently experiencing disappears for whatever reason, then we will use these tools in different ways,” he said. .

"From our point of view, the measure of the success of any policy related to these issues is'what is the price of the pump?'...not whether we will supply 50 million barrels of oil as soon as possible," he said .

The Department of Energy stated on the day Biden announced the reserves that the company can borrow 32 million barrels of oil from the SPR, and the exchange's contract will be awarded on or before December 14.

The delivery of oil will take place from January to April, and oil companies will have to return the oil from next year to 2024 with interest.

The department will also provide 18 million barrels of oil for sales previously approved by Congress. The company said that the sales notice will be released on December 17 or earlier.

Turk said that the White House is still studying Biden’s proposal to ban crude oil exports to keep prices down, saying that this is still one of the tools that the government may eventually use.

Some critics of the ban say that it may depress the price of domestically produced crude oil and has little effect on cooling car fuel prices, as many of the country’s refineries operate on foreign oil.

"Of course we heard members of Congress have two views on this issue," he said. "Therefore, we put all the analysis and all the information together to provide information for our secretary and ultimately the decisions made by the president."

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