The US Department of Energy announced it was putting up for sale one million barrels of gasoline from its conserved reserves in the Northeast, an initiative “strategically chosen to maximize the impact on downward prices, as Americans take to the wheel,” a government statement said.
This approach comes just before the long Memorial Day holiday weekend which marks the unofficial start of summer and car travel in the United States.
“With Memorial Day arriving and the start of the travel season, the Biden-Harris administration is taking the initiative to lower gasoline costs by selling a million barrels,” explained the House spokesperson. Blanche Karine Jean-Pierre.
For Patrick De Haan, analyst at GasBuddy, this availability on the market “should have a minor impact on pump prices nationally, but it may exert slight downward pressure in the Northeast”.
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The analyst recalled that one million barrels of gasoline corresponded to only 2.7 hours of national gasoline consumption.
Phil Flynn of Price Futures Group noted the well-thought-out timing of the move, “just before the travel season and before an election.”
Speaking outside a Manhattan courthouse, Donald Trump – currently on trial for hidden payments to an porn star in 2016 – denounced the decision as an electoral ploy by Joe Biden.
These gasoline reserves kept in the Northeast were created by President Barack Obama in 2014 after the disaster of Hurricane Sandy. The storm caused fuel supply problems.
The sale of these gasoline stocks was required by a budget agreement passed this year.
The initiative caused crude prices to weaken slightly on the oil market on Tuesday.
The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States (3.78 liters) stood at $3.59 compared to $3.53 a year ago, according to the automobile association AAA.
