U.S. to loan more crude from Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of IEA release

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The U.S. government will loan about 53.3M barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to nine companies as part of its contribution to the International Energy Agency's coordinated action to stabilize global oil supplies.

The companies that were granted contract awards for exchange include Exxon Mobil (XOM [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/XOM]), BP (BP [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/BP]), Marathon Petroleum (MPC [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/MPC]) and Phillips 66 (PSX [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/PSX]).

The Department of Energy said it is securing ~28% return premium through this exchange, representing 15.1M barrels. It added [https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/opr/articles/energy-department-awards-contracts-strategic-petroleum-reserve-advancing] that companies may begin scheduling deliveries immediately.

The U.S. has committed to release 172M barrels from the SPR as part of the broader IEA agreement to stabilize supplies amid the Iran war. The DOE already loaned about 80M barrels.

The SPR held [https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCSSTUS1&f=W] about 398M barrels of crude oil, according to the Energy Information Administration, equivalent to around four days of global oil consumption.

Oil companies borrowed only around 58% of the 92.5M barrels that the DOE offered to loan from the SPR last month, _Reuters _reported [https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-loan-533-million-barrels-oil-strategic-petroleum-reserve-2026-05-11/].

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