Home Heating Oil Supplies Remarks to Reporters

I am pleased to announce that our 7-month effort to build up adequate home heating fuel oil stocks has succeeded. Figures released yesterday indicate that our stocks today are in the range of 235 million barrels. We are well ahead of last year at the same time, and it's clear that we're now at the point of achieving our goal of 240 million barrels in primary reserves.

This is a gratifying achievement which ensures that we will have enough home heating oil to meet our needs this winter. Having achieved this goal of primary heating oil stocks, our primary effort now will shift toward distributing these supplies as they are needed throughout the different regions of our country.

I've instructed Secretary Charlie Duncan of the Department of Energy to work with the major refiners and suppliers to assure proper distribution now as a first priority. The positive action already taken by the fuel distributors must be continued and expedited. No one needing fuel should be left unserved as the cold months approach. The Department of Energy will deal expeditiously when extraordinary circumstances might possibly cause temporary spot shortages.

Last April, our primary stocks were down to about 113 million barrels, which were 25 million barrels below the 1978 levels. At that time, I set as a goal the reaching of 240 million barrels in primary reserves. I want to commend the refiners for their cooperation and also applaud all Americans who've cut back on the waste of energy and increased their efforts to conserve energy to reduce overall demand for oil.

I urge continued restraint in energy consumption by all Americans, which will tend to hold down prices and also to prevent spot shortages. I'm also calling upon refiners to take the following steps: first, to maintain heating oil and diesel production at high levels to assure a continued flow of adequate supplies throughout this winter; also to distribute as much heating oil as possible now to sections of the country which might be visited by early snow and heavy snows or also early freezing of waterways used to transport fuel oil to the places of consumption.

We also want them to increase allocations to marketers, to accelerate deliveries to wholesalers and retailers before the full onset of the heavy heating season during the winter, and to maintain historical credit practices so that consumers will have an opportunity to purchase oil on the same credit terms as they have enjoyed in previous years.

I know that the increase in the of oil will cause a hardship on some consumers and particularly those on low and fixed incomes. I urge the Congress to adopt without delay the measures I have proposed which will make $1.6 billion available this winter to assist the poor and the aged and others who are unable to meet the rapidly increasing energy costs. I have today sent the Congress a supplemental appropriations request for $1.2 billion to achieve this purpose.

With the passage of the windfall profits tax we will have the assurance each year, for the next 10 years, of $2.4 billion at least to accomplish the purposes of alleviating the heavy financial burden on the low-income families because of increased prices of energy. In addition. I have instructed the Small Business Administration to ensure that there is adequate assistance available to small suppliers who are in need of credit to make purchases for major supplies of home heating oil.

We are doing everything we can to prevent interruptions of supply, to make sure that supplies are adequate, to reduce the heavy burden on the poor families of increased energy costs, and to make sure that distributors have adequate credit to keep their supplies on hand during the coming months of the winter.

I'd like now to introduce the Secretary of Energy, who will answer questions from the media if you have details which you would like to have explored.

Charlie.