the White House statement continued.The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is an emergency stockpile to preserve access to oil in case of natural disasters, national security issues and other events.
Maintained by the Energy Department, the reserves are stored in caverns created in salt domes along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts.
There are roughly 605 million barrels of sweet and sour petroleum in the reserve.The U.S. Department of Energy will make the oil available from the reserve in two ways; 32 million barrels will be released in the next few months and will return to the reserve in the years ahead, the White House said.