US ready with emergency oil loans

BALTIMORE: US energy secretary Sam Bodman said the government stood ready to make emergency oil loans to West Coast refineries facing a loss of crude from the planned shutdown of BP’s giant Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska.

“It would be made available and we can get it to the West Coast,” Bodman said, referring to oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. “We can get it there by barge, I believe,” Bodman said.

The SPR holds about 688m barrels of crude at four sites in Texas and Louisiana. The oil cannot be transported to the West Coast by pipeline and would have to be sent to the region by ship.