White House Rules Out Tapping US Emergency Reserves

WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush opposes tapping the emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to ease record high oil prices, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said Wednesday.
"The SPR is there for emergencies," Buchan told AFP.
"The president believes that the most important thing that we can do on the energy front is to enact comprehensive energy policy, which he has proposed to the Congress," Buchan said.
Bush in November 2001 ordered that the strategic petroleum reserve, stored in huge underground salt caverns along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, be filled to its maximum capacity of 700 million barrels.
The reserve is at a record 665 million barrels and growing.
During a previous oil price spike in May, the Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, called on Bush to suspend operations to fill the reserve until the market cooled.
"We didn`t say we would tap it but we would stop filling it," Kerry`s economic affairs advisor, Sarah Bianchi, said.
New York`s benchmark contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, fell five cents to 44.10 dollars a barrel a few minutes after official trade opened.
It hit an all-time peak of 44.34 dollars a barrel in pre-opening electronic deals.