The United States’ Department of Energy has reportedly awarded contracts to sell up to 45mn barrels of crude oil from their Strategic Reserve as part of an earlier announcement by the administration of President Joe Biden.

Once materialised, this will become one of the largest withdrawals of emergency stocks in US history. The ministry said in a statement: “The sold quantities will be delivered from August 16 to September 30.”

The ministry then pointed out that the oil contracts were awarded as per a sale announcement issued on May 24 to nine companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Marathon Petroleum.

This comes on the heels of a sharp increase in petrol prices across the nation, with people paying, on average, US$5 per gallon of petrol.

The administration of President Joe Biden announced in late March that it would release a record amount of oil of one million barrels per day for a period of six months from the strategic reserve in order to control the rise in global oil prices.