the us energy department on friday said that it awarded contracts for the previously announced plan to purchase 3 million barrels of crude oil for the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve the agency is purchasing the oil for an average price of about 73 a barrel and the oil will be delivered in august it also announced plans for an additional purchase of 31 million barrels of oil for the big hill spr site this september as part of president joe biden’s “replenishment strategy” following his historic release from the spr in the wake of the russiaukraine war’s disruption to global oil supplies us crude benchmark west texas intermediate for july delivery cln23 settled at 7017 a barrel on the new york mercantile exchange on friday down 12 or 16 for the session