US says oil from strategic reserve to start reaching market next week

The Trump administration said on Friday it expects early deliveries of oil from the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve to reach the market by the end of next week as part of an effort to combat the energy price spike since the start of the Iran war.

The oil will be released in the form of loans that companies will return with extra barrels as a premium, the U.S. Energy Department said in a statement. This system was meant to stabilize markets "at no cost to American taxpayers," it said.

The Energy Department said it had requested companies to bid for 86 million barrels of crude oil, which will be the first from the release of 172 million barrels that Washington announced this week.

The U.S. effort is part of a broader release of 400 million barrels of oil agreed to by the 32-nation International Energy Agency on Wednesday.

-Ismail Shakil and Costas Pitas/Reuters