The US is offering 18 million barrels of oil from the emergency reserve

The announcement of the sale was expected after the Biden administration announced it as part of a wider release of 50 million barrels from reserve in coordination with other oil-consuming countries, including China, India and South Korea. The Department of Energy said last Friday that the sale will be announced on December 17. The administration is trying to allay U.S. consumers' concerns about high fuel costs and inflation as they travel more, even though President Joe Biden has few tools to deal with the price of crude oil traded in a global market. In executing the sale, the Department of Energy is stepping up an auction authorized by Congress in 2018 to fund the government. Oil deliveries to companies from Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), a series of caves off the coast of Texas and Louisiana, will be between February 1 and March 31, the department said. The department also plans to lend up to 32 million barrels of oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to companies that need to return crude oil with interest. The department said last Friday that the first batch of this exchange will be 4.8 million barrels with Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest oil company in the United States. Brent crude oil prices fell 2% to $73.52 a barrel on Friday as rising cases of the Omicron variant raised fears that new restrictions could hit fuel demand.