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Wright aims to cancel mandated oil reserve sales

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Trump administration supports Alaska LNG, may offer loan

guarantee

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Small nuclear reactors likely to receive financial,

regulatory

aid

By Timothy Gardner and Jarrett Renshaw

HOUSTON, March 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Energy Secretary

Chris Wright said on Monday he was planning to work with

Congress on cancelling previously mandated sales from the

Strategic Petroleum Reserve as one way to address low

stockpiles.

Congress has mandated some 100 million barrels in sales from

the reserve, the world's largest emergency stockpile of crude

oil, with a 7 million barrel sale set for fiscal year 2026-2027,

and further sales through 2031.

"Anything with Congress is more difficult, you know, and

that takes time, but absolutely," Wright told Reuters in an

interview at the CERAWeek conference.

It would take five to seven years and $20 billion to refill

the reserve, Wright said. U.S. President Donald Trump's

predecessor Joe Biden sold nearly 300 million barrels from the

SPR, including its largest sale ever after Russia invaded

Ukraine in 2022.

Due to ongoing maintenance issues, refilling the reserve

takes more time than selling from it, Wright said. The Energy

Department said on Friday that Wright would not ask Congress for

$20 billion for purchases all in one go, and that working with

lawmakers to buy oil could take years.

Wright also wants to boost U.S. exports of liquefied natural

gas. Trump talked up a proposed $44 billion Alaska LNG project

in his address to Congress last week.

Trump has said Japan, South Korea and other countries want

to partner with the United States in a "gigantic" natural gas

pipeline in Alaska, claiming they would invest "trillions of

dollars each." The Alaska LNG project needs an 800-mile pipeline

to bring gas from Alaska's north to send it to customers in Asia

and no final investment decisions have yet been made.

Wright said all options for supporting the project are on

the table including a potential loan guarantee from his

department's Loan Programs Office, or LPO.

"The administration will look at every way we can to get a

large infrastructure project like that built," Wright said,

adding that included diplomacy and a potential loan guarantee,

which would help the project get financing at a lower rate than

offered by banks.

U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan secured a

provision in a 2021 infrastructure law for Alaska LNG to be

eligible for federal loan guarantee of roughly $30 billion that

is indexed to inflation.

If the Trump administration uses the LPO for Alaska LNG, it

would mark a policy change from his first term as president when

he did not significantly tap the LPO. Biden frequently used the

LPO and signed legislation to swell its financial aid to

hundreds of billions of dollars.

Wright also downplayed regional opposition to new natural

gas pipelines in regions like the U.S. Northeast, saying he did

not expect it to get in the way of building new projects.

"Everyone wants lower energy prices. Everyone in New York,

everyone in New England," he said.

Trump, on his first day in office, signed an emergency

energy declaration intended to expand federal powers to push

through big projects like generators, pipelines, and

transmission to meet rising power demand.

Wright, who stepped down from the board of small modular

reactor company Oklo ( OKLO ) when he was confirmed as energy

secretary, said the administration was also likely to give the

emerging nuclear technology both financial and regulatory

support, but did not detail how.

Small modular reactors are seen as a potential partial

solution to meeting soaring power demand from data centers, but

there are no commercial plants yet.