WH’s Hochstein: ‘We Need to Have an SPR That Is Fuller Than It Is Today’ for Future Emergencies

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Biden energy coordinator Amos Hochstein said that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve needs to be “fuller than it is today for national security and economic emergencies in the future.” But “We still can manage any emergency.”

Hochstein said, “[W]e have to be really opportunistic and look at the market and where it is to see if it makes sense to do continued SPR releases. The President would like to replenish the SPR in full of what we released, so an additional 180-200 million barrels. And I think when prices start reaching toward that $70 mark, that’s when we’re probably going to be looking at — somewhere around that range of 70, 72, 73 or maybe a little below that — we’ll look to immediately begin to increase and to repurchase oil into the SPR. And that’s because we need to have an SPR that is fuller than it is today for national security and economic emergencies in the future. We still have 400 million barrels. That’s a lot of barrels. We still can manage any emergency. But looking into the future, when prices come down into that $70 range, we’re going to look to be buyers in the market.”

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