The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) bought 6 MMbbl of sour crude for delivery into its Bayou Choctaw reserve site in a tender that closed last month.
Three companies were awarded the supply contracts: Shell (2 MMbbl), ExxonMobil (3.5 MMbbl) and Macquarie (500 Mbbl). The entire purchase was priced at $411.4 million, or at an average of $68.56/bbl. The agency received 50 offers for the tender, which had sought 1.5 MMbbl for delivery each month during February-May 2025.
The purchases are part of a program to refill the DOE’s four SPR sites - two each in Louisiana and Texas - after a massive 180 MMbbl emergency draw down in 2022 to offset oil price rallies triggered by Russia’s war. To date, the DOE has directly purchased over 56 MMbbls of oil for the SPR at an average price of about $76/bbl. This is nearly $20/bbl lower than the $95 average sales price for 2022’s emergency sales.
