The U.S. Energy Department said Thursday it was prepared to make oil supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve available to refineries to help offset the disruption in Canadian oil imports caused by an explosion and fire at a vital Enbridge Inc. pipeline in Minnesota.
Canada is the biggest supplier of foreign crude to the United States, accounting for almost one-fifth of its over 10 million bpd of imports, government data show.
Nearly all of that is delivered via the Enbridge system.