Senior administration officials say that President Biden will release oil from the nation's emergency stockpile as Americans face rising gas prices.
The administration will release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to combat the high price of oil.
The Department of Energy will release its reserves on Tuesday in order to address fluctuations in supply and demand for oil, administration officials said.
The price of oil has fallen since late October in anticipation of action being taken to tame energy costs. The West Texas Intermediate jumped after the announcement but then fell to 0.4 percent lower.
Oil- producing nations cut output when demand for oil fell in the early months of the Pandemic. In the summer of 2020, the country's oil rig count was down 70 percent.
President Biden has called on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase their production, but has been turned down.
The president wanted to show Americans that he was focused on rising gas prices and that he was not going to let them down.
After the 1973-74 oil embargo by Arab members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the underground caverns in Texas and Louisiana were established to store oil in case of an emergency. The reserve can be used to exchange oil when accidents or storms block shipping channels.
The move announced on Tuesday would not be an emergency release, according to Biden administration officials. It will come in two parts, a loan of 32 million barrels over several months to refineries and the sale of 18 million barrels, which has already been congressionally authorized.
Britain will allow companies to release their oil reserves. A British government representative said that if every company took the option, 1.5 million barrels of oil would be released.
A coordinated release would probably be considered a challenge by members of the group, and could prompt a response next week when the group holds its next monthly meeting.
The group has decided to increase production by 400,000 barrels a day. The administration worked for weeks to get other oil- producing countries to agree to release their inventories in order to ensure a parallel release, which was a preference of Mr. Biden, officials said on Tuesday.
The group said at its last meeting that it was committed to ensuring a stable and balanced oil market, and that bigger increases could exceed demand as economies struggled to emerge from the pandemic.
An official of the International Energy Forum, an organization based in Riyadh, said on Monday that he expected the current plans of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to continue.
Joseph McMonigle, secretary-general of the organization, said in a statement that certain unforeseen external factors such as a release of strategic reserves or new lockdowns in Europe may prompt a reassessment of market conditions.
The move was seen by the Biden administration as an indication of the president's focus on the rising gas prices. The officials pointed to Mr. Biden's request to the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether oil and gas companies were engaging in illegal conduct that was driving up prices at the pump.
During a politically troubling time for the administration, the surge in inflation, as well as concerns about the persistent pandemic, haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan and soaring crossings at the border have contributed to declining approval numbers.
The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said earlier this month that the administration should tap into the stockpile to provide immediate relief for Americans.
Most experts think a release would lower prices modestly, but only for a short time because world oil consumption is around 100 million barrels a day. According to the travel services organization, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States has risen to $3.40 on Tuesday from $2.11 a year ago. Gas prices have started to go down.
The United States and 27 other nations released 60 million barrels of oil reserves in June of 2011. Half of the total amount of oil was from reserves in the United States, with the other 27 industrialized nations accounting for the rest. American officials said that negotiations for the coordinated response were held in secret.
Stanley Reed and Clifford Krauss reported.
