On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced that the Department of Energy would release 50 million barrels of oil for Americans. The Department of Energy will use oil that is in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) so that the nation can see a lowering in gas prices that have soared in the past few weeks.

According to the White House, the release of oil will also “address the mismatch between demand exiting the pandemic and supply.” President Biden has worked with countries around the world who will also release supplies in parallel with the U.S. Some of these countries who will also release their reserves are the following:

China
India
The United Kingdom
Japan
Republic of Korea.

As the diplomatic initiative led by the President became public, there has been an almost 10 percent decrease in price. With the release of additional supplies from reserves in countries across the world, oil prices are expected to see a further drop.

The U.S. Department of Energy is expected to release the oil in two ways:

32 million barrels of oil will be an exchange over months. Oil will be released and will return to the SPR in the future, over several years, for future needs. It will help provide Americans with immediate relief.

18 million barrels will be an acceleration into the coming months of a sale of oil. The Congress had already authorized the sale.

The White House also said that Biden would focus on how consolidation in the energy sector of oil and gas might result in anti-competitive practices that prevent Americans from getting the benefits of lower prices of oil and gas in order to pump more gas and have lower heating bills.

The White House press release also mentioned the President’s clean energy goals. The administration will invest in combating climate change. It is planning to make America a zero-emission economy by 2050 and to reduce the nation’s dependency on foreign fossil fuels.