US panel to back oil inventories rethink

A US government advisory panel is to recommend a revision to the minimum level of crude inventories required to ensure adequate supplies of crude oil to the nation’s refiners to produce gasoline, heating oil, diesel, jet fuel and other petroleum products.

The oil industry now uses a level of 270m barrels, a threshold that was breached in January for the first time since 1975. The standard was set by the National Petroleum Council, a federal advisory committee. The council will change the minimum operating oil inventory level to a range of 260m to 270m barrels, Reuters reported

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