A truck passes pumpjacks in the Belridge oil field on November 03, 2021 near McKittrick, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images News | Getty Images
President Joe Biden’s administration stands ready to release even more barrels of oil from its strategic reserves should the need arise again, according to the U.S. State Department’s senior advisor for global energy security.
“Absolutely. This is a tool that was available to us and will be available again,” Amos Hochstein told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates on Monday.
“Remember, this was not a 50-million-barrel release, 30 million barrels were an exchange where companies and traders can take the oil now and return it over a scheduled period of time. That means the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will be replenished,” Hochstein said.
“And therefore, we have more flexibility to be able to do this again in the future if the need arises. I think we wanted to do something that was impactful for the market and that also had the ability and the flexibility to allow us to do that again should the need arise for the American economy.”
In the first such move of its kind, Biden announced on Nov. 23 the coordinated release of oil between the U.S., India, China, Japan, South Korea and the U.K.
Under the plan, the U.S. is to release 50 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Of that total, 32 million barrels will be an exchange over the next several months, while 18 million barrels will be an acceleration of a previously authorized sale.
OPEC and allied non-OPEC producers, an influential group known as OPEC+, have repeatedly ignored U.S. pressure to increase crude supply to stymie surging fuel prices.
Led by OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC leader Russia, the group will meet again on Thursday to discuss the next phase of production policy.
There is little sign the group intends to change tack from their current output plan.
International benchmark Brent crude futures traded at $74.60 a barrel on Monday, up more than 2.5% for the session, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures stood at $70.62, around 3.6% higher.
Several countries announced travel restrictions on Friday on news of the newly identified omicron Covid variant. It prompted some energy market participants to fear a return of travel bans that could weaken fuel demand.
Analysts believe Monday’s rebound in oil prices shows last week’s slump may have been overdone, although it is not yet clear how demand will be affected.
“We are living through a very fragile economic recovery and we needed to address what was an underlying factor that could threaten that recovery,” Hochstein said.
“That’s what we saw in the market last Tuesday with the U.S. moves and, quite frankly, that’s exactly what we also saw on Friday with the oil prices going down quite sharply because we are in this very fragile moment,” he added.
The World Health Organization has recognized the newly identified Covid strain, first referred to as lineage B.1.1.529, as a variant of concern. The WHO said on Monday that omicron poses a “very high” global risk, although a South African doctor has described symptoms identified so far as “extremely mild.”
The U.N. health agency has said it will take weeks to understand how the variant may affect diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.
— CNBC’s Pippa Stevens contributed to this report.
Today was the official start of racing at the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025! There was a tremendous energy (and heat) on the ground at NCM Motorsports Park as nearly a dozen teams took to the track. Currently, as of writing, Stanford is ranked #1 in the SOV (Single-Occupant Vehicle) class with 68 registered laps. However, the fastest lap so far belongs to UC Berkeley, which clocked a 4:45 on the 3.15-mile track. That’s an average speed of just under 40 mph on nothing but solar energy. Not bad!
In the MOV (Multi-Occupant Vehicle) class, Polytechnique Montréal is narrowly ahead of Appalachian State by just 4 laps. At last year’s formula sun race, Polytechnique Montréal took first place overall in this class, and the team hopes to repeat that success. It’s still too early for prediction though, and anything can happen between now and the final day of racing on Saturday.
Congrats to the teams that made it on track today. We look forward to seeing even more out there tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some shots from today via the event’s wonderful photographer Cora Kennedy.
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The numbers are in and they are all bad for Tesla fans – the company sold just 5,000 Cybertruck models in Q4 of 2025, and built some 30% more “other” vehicles than it delivered. It just gets worse and worse, on today’s tension-building episode of Quick Charge!
We’ve also got day 1 coverage of the 2025 Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix, reports that the Tesla Optimus program is in chaos after its chief engineer jumps ship, and a look ahead at the fresh new Hyundai IONIQ 2 set to bow early next year, thanks to some battery specs from the Kia EV2.
New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.
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Tesla has launched its new Oasis Supercharger, the long-promised EV charging station of the future, with a solar farm and off-grid batteries.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to the Supercharger stations, and CEO Elon Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
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All of these pieces have been in place for years, and Tesla has now discontinued the Powerpack in favor of the Megapack. The Supercharger network is also transitioning to V4 stations.
Yet, solar and battery deployment haven’t accelerated much in the decade since Musk made that comment, but it is finally happening.
Tesla has now unveiled the project and turned on most of the Supercharger stalls:
The project consists of 168 chargers, with half of them currently operational, making it one of the largest Supercharger stations in the world. However, that’s not even the most notable aspect of it.
The station is equipped with 11 MW of ground-mounted solar panels and canopies, spanning 30 acres of land, and 10 Tesla Megapacks with a total energy storage capacity of 39 MWh.
It can be operated off-grid, which is the case right now, according to Tesla.
With off-grid operations, Tesla was about to bring 84 stalls online just in time for the Fourth of July travel weekend. The rest of the stalls and a lounge are going to open later this year.
Electrek’s Take
This is awesome. A bit late, but awesome. This is what charging stations should be like: fully powered by renewable energy.
Unfortunately, it will be much harder to open those stations in the future due to legislation that Trump and the Republican Party have just passed, which removes incentives for solar and energy storage, adds taxes on them, and removes incentives to build batteries – all things that have helped Tesla considerably over the last few years.
The US is likely going to have a few tough years for EV adoption and renewable energy deployment.
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