“We are certainly looking at the option of oil supplies from the strategic reserve,” Granholm told Bloomberg TV. “The president will have something to say about that.”

    Last week, countries in the OPEC+ arrangement stuck to their plan to keep an increase in production volumes to within 400,000 barrels per day for the next month.  The United States had called for further increases against a background of shortages and criticised countries for failing to heed his appeal.

    Petrol prices in the Unites States are rising to record levels – and are now at their highest since 2014. Prices at the pump have climbed 1 ½ times and now stand at $3.40 a gallon. Several Democratic senators have already urged President Joe Biden to ban oil exports and begin using the strategic petroleum reserve.

     Biden has already said that the United States has other means at its disposal to combat high oil prices.

     “There are other tools in the arsenal that we have to deal with other countries at an appropriate time,” Biden told reporters at the White House, when asked about the use of the reserve.

     The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects petrol prices to decline in December to $3.05 per gallon.