Factbox: Strategic oil reserves remain an option for US

>While longstanding U.S. policy is to release reserves only in the event of a significant and immediate supply shortage, some analysts say the Obama administration may feel compelled to try to tamp down prices that are being fueled by outages in Libya as well as concerns over Middle East unrest.The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates social upheaval in Libya has halted between 850,000 and 1.0 million barrels per day (bpd) of the country's total of 1.6 million bpd.Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia has pledged to fill any supply void left by Libya. The kingdom was currently pumping around 9.0 million barrels daily and has spare capacity of around 3.5 million bpd, a senior Saudi source told Reuters last week, though that would cut global spare capacity to pump more oil.Brent crude rose above $117 on Monday, as a counter-offensive by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi against rebels deepened concerns that a civil war is brewing in Africa's largest holder of oil reserves.THE SPRAs the world's biggest oil consumer, the United States holds the world's largest emergency oil stockpiles in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Four storage sites in Texas and Louisiana hold a total 726.6 million barrels of crude, enough to meet the nation's needs for more than a month.The White House last month proposed selling $500 million worth of crude oil from the SPR to help cover the costs of managing the emergency stockpile.The White House did not say how many barrels of reserve oil it planned to sell, but it said it would be a "small amount" of the stockpile's total holdings. At a current market price of $100 a barrel for U.S.

"The proportion of crude and products in storage varies across countries.The IEA can coordinate the release of some of these supplies to world markets in the event of an actual or potentially severe oil supply disruption, but high prices alone cannot trigger the mechanism"crude, the administration would need to sell about 5 million barrels to raise $500 million.IEA STOCKPILESThe 28 member countries of the Paris-based IEA, part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), hold emergency stockpiles equivalent to at least 90 days of net oil imports, counting both government and industry stocks.Current levels of government-owned supplies are equivalent to about 1,000 times Libya's pre-crisis daily crude output of 1.6 million bpd. The proportion of crude and products in storage varies across countries.The IEA can coordinate the release of some of these supplies to world markets in the event of an actual or potentially severe oil supply disruption, but high prices alone cannot trigger the mechanism. The stockpiles are held as government emergency reserves through specialized stockholding agencies, or by placing minimum stockholding obligations on industry.Total oil stocks at the end of 2009 in IEA member countries amounted to about 4.2 billion barrels when adding commercial inventories, enough to satisfy the world's entire oil demand for almost 50 days. Of that total, 2.6 billion barrels are industry stocks, while emergency stockpiles account for the rest.IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka last week sought to calm markets by saying emergency oil stockpiles could be used if needed to counter the disruption from Libya."We can release 2.0 million barrels per day for two years. We don't really have to worry too much about the supply side," he said, adding the situation was very different from the one in 2008, when oil prices jumped to nearly $ 150 per barrel.

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