On 29 July, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it has purchased 4.65 million barrels of crude oil to be delivered to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) between October and December 2024.  With this latest round, DOE has purchased 43.25 million barrels to replenish the SPR after emergency releases in 2022 to lower the cost of oil and gasoline. In its announcement, DOE stated that the full amount of 180 million barrels sold “following the unprecedented Russian war against Ukraine” have been “secured.” However, 140 million barrels come from long planned releases through 2027 that were cancelled in late 2022, thus there is not likely to be any market reaction to this announcement. Here's the back...