The United States said on Monday that it would sell 26 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was authorized by Congress in previous years.

After the government sold a record 180 million barrels of oil reserves last year, the US Department of Energy considered canceling the plan to sell 26 million barrels of oil in the 2023 fiscal year. But the cancellation operation needs the approval of Congress.

The sale plan announced on Monday may temporarily lower the US oil reserves below the current level of about 372 million barrels, which is the lowest level since 1983.

The United States Department of Energy said that the deadline for bidding for these oil is February 28, and the delivery will be from April 1 to June 30.

The US government has sold 180 million barrels of oil to cope with the rising fuel prices caused by geopolitical conflicts and epidemics.

The department said that it was implementing a three-part strategy to replenish strategic oil reserves in the long term, including the use of revenue repurchase from emergency sales, the recovery of more than 25 million barrels of oil from previous transactions, and cooperation with Congress to avoid "unnecessary sales unrelated to supply interruption, so as to maintain production strategically".