According to CNBC, a top State Department adviser said the US is prepared to release even more crude oil from its emergency stocks. This follows the announcement last week by the Biden administration that it will release 50 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves to lower gasoline costs.

According to Amos Hochstein, the senior counsellor for global energy security at the US State Department, the US has enough to release much more. 32 million barrels of the 50 million barrels that will be freed from the emergency reserves will be exchanged, meaning they will be replenished at some point. “This is a tool that was available to us and will be available again,” Hochstein said.

This comes just days before OPEC+ meets again to decide whether to proceed with its planned 400,000 barrel per day production rise, pause it, or possibly reduce output. It also comes on the same day that the US Energy Information Administration announced that new legislation, along with the 50 million bpd release, could reduce the SPR by half by 2032.

Between 2028 and 2031, 87.6 million barrels will be released under the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, and 160 million barrels will be released under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act and the Bipartisan Budget Act. The SPR would be at its lowest level since March 1983 if it is halved by 2032, according to the EIA.