President Joe Biden's administration has delayed by roughly a year the return of more than 8mn bl of crude borrowed from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The delays were approved as recently as last week, when the US Energy Department revised two "exchange" contracts it negotiated with Shell, delaying the return of 3.6mn bl of crude to the SPR until 2025. The administration last year separately revised four other contracts, delaying the return of nearly 4.5mn bl of crude initially planned to be returned to the SPR from 2022-24. The contract revisions, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, ... (full story)