Reuters reports that OPEC urged the United States to tap its emergency crude reserves to bring down world oil prices:
Purnomo Yusgiantoro, the president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said on Wednesday he had approached Washington to suggest the move to force prices down from $55 a barrel."We had communication with them. I asked them to use their reserves," Purnomo, Indonesia's oil minister, told reporters in Jakarta. He did not say what Washington's response was.
In Washington, a White House spokesman said the Bush administration would not use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to influence market prices.
"We've seen the news reports (about the OPEC request)," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. "But the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we've made it clear, is not to be used to manipulate market prices. It is America's emergency reserve for times of severe market disruptions."
The Bush administration has repeatedly said that the emergency stockpile exists for a severe oil supply disruption, in line with the policy of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the group that coordinates policy on oil reserves for 26 industrialized nations.
I'm so glad President Bush is tough enough to resist the political pressure to use the emergency reserve to try to lower prices. The reserve contains way too little oil be of much use in such an effort. Such a misguided effort would leave the U.S. even more vulnerable to an interruption in the supply from the Middle East.
Comments