July 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy said

on Monday it had finalized a contract to purchase 4.65 million

barrels of crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, for

delivery to the Bayou Choctaw site in Louisiana during the last

three months of the year.

Exxon Mobil ( XOM ) will supply 3.9 million barrels of the

contract, while Macquarie Commodities Trading US LLC will supply

the rest, the DOE said. The average purchase price for the oil

is about $76.92 per barrel, the DOE said.

The purchase is the latest in a string of contracts intended

to refill the nation's emergency oil stockpile following a

record release of 180 million barrels in 2022. That sale was an

effort to control gasoline prices that spiked to more than $5.00

a gallon after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But it also reduced

the SPR to the lowest in 40 years.

The DOE said it has since repurchased a total of 43.25

million barrels at an average price of around $77 a barrel,

after having sold the oil at around $95 a barrel during the 2022

release - reflecting what it called a "good deal for taxpayers."

U.S. crude futures were trading around $76 a

barrel on Monday.

The DOE has also worked with Congress to cancel a previously

planned sale of 140 million barrels of oil from the reserve,

something the department says should count toward the refilling

of the stockpile.

"As promised, we have secured the 180 million barrels back

to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve released in response to

Putin's war in Ukraine - and we accomplished this while getting

a good deal for taxpayers and maintaining the readiness of the

world's largest Strategic Petroleum Reserve," said Energy

Secretary Jennifer Granholm.