American companies began to store oil in the US strategic reserve storage facilities, Bloomberg reported.

According to the estimates, this month private companies delivered about 1.1 million barrels of oil to these storage facilities. Earlier this month, the US Department of Energy entered into relevant contracts with several companies. They can place about 23 million barrels in strategic oil reserves for about a year. The main part will be delivered in May and June, according to the source.

Agreements between the companies and the US Department of Energy were reached amid a sharp drop in oil prices in recent weeks. The price of WTI reached negative values on the New York Mercantile Exchange for the first time on April 20. The price of May energy supplies fell to almost minus $ 40 per barrel.

The maximum strategic oil reserve in the US is 713.5 million barrels. It was created by the decision of Congress in 1975 after the global energy crisis. The four salt storage facilities in Texas and Louisiana currently contain about 635 million barrels of oil. The US oil reserve is the largest government-owned in the world.