Washington: US President Donald Trump has directed his administration to work on a plan to get funding to the oil and gas industries as a steep sell-off in oil futures continued.
“We will never let the great US Oil & Gas Industry down,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning, Xinhua reported.
“I have instructed the Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Treasury to formulate a plan which will make funds available so that these very important companies and jobs will be secured long into the future!” Trump said.
At a White House press briefing on MDonald Trumponday, Trump said that the US was “looking to” add as much as 75 million barrels of oil to its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) “based on the record low price of oil”.
US Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told Bloomberg on Tuesday that the US government is taking “aggressive and appropriate steps” to help the oil industry during the pandemic, and he is eyeing the Federal Reserve’s Main Street lending program to help oil companies.
Fuelled by pandemic-related demand shock and oversupply fears, the soon-to-expire May contract for US oil futures prices crashed to the negative territory for the first time in history on Monday. (IANS)