Biden bets a million barrels a day will drive down soaring gas prices – what you need to know about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

  The Biden administration on March 31, 2022, said it plans to release an unprecedented 180 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to combat the recent spike in gas and diesel prices. About a million barrels of oil will be released every day for up to six months.

  If all the oil is released, it would represent almost one-third of the current volume of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It follows a release of 30 million barrels in early March, a large withdrawal until the latest one.

Soaring crude prices make the cost of pretty much everything else go up too because we almost literally eat oil

  The price of oil has been spiking in recent weeks in response to concerns that the war in Ukraine will significantly reduce supply. But what happens in oil markets never stays in oil markets.

  The price of U.S. crude oil jumped to a 13-year high of US$130 on March 6, 2022. It has come down but has been trading above $110 since March 17. That’s over 60% higher than it was in mid-December before fears of a Russian invasion began to mount.