Richton Salt Dome/SPR

Soon to come: a slide show expose on the politics behind the Richton Salt dome

Jeff Grimes has done some excellent investigative work to uncover the very sobering news that Hailey Barbour has put over a tremendous amount of effort to get Richton chosen as the next and only new oil storage site in the USA. There is nothing to indicate that a change in administration has altered the DOE plans to spend $5 billion on this project.

Gene Taylor is on board if the water is drawn from the Miss. Sound. That is being designed into the project.

The salt will be dumped five or more miles outside Horn Island. That is being designed into the project.

Chip Pickering is bragging that his amendment to an energy bill forced the inevitable selection of Richton--even though it is the most expensive of around five possible sites. In fact, it is at least five times as expensive.

BUT, remember, this $5 billion will support a frenzy of construction jobs over a few years. That may be what keeps this DOE project online and the Pascagoula River threatened by more damage than any single project humans have conceived so far, even with a new administration in charge.

To learn what the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is and some of it's history read the wikipedia page here: SPR

U.S. Aims to Fill Oil Reserve

By SIOBHAN HUGHES

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration resumed buying oil Friday for the U.S. emergency stockpile, acting on the recent steep drop in oil prices and the expiration of a law that had banned purchases.

The U.S. Energy Department said it plans to buy 12 million barrels of crude oil to replenish supplies sold after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. It also noted that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would receive an additional 5.395 million barrels of oil from refiners by May, reflecting repayment for oil loaned after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike last year.

The additions, along with more than 8 million barrels under a program that allows companies that produce crude under federal leases to pay royalties with oil shipments instead of cash, would restore the emergency stockpile to its full capacity. The stockpile can hold 727 million barrels of oil. The reserve held 567 million barrels when President George W. Bush took office.

Last year, as crude-oil prices rocketed, Congress passed a law requiring the administration to stop making purchases.

With oil prices closing out 2008 at $44.60 a barrel, down more than half, and the law expiring, the Bush administration wants to resume buying and end the presidency by setting in motion plans for a fully replenished emergency reserve.

"The SPR is a critical component of our nation's energy and national security," DOE spokeswoman Healy Baumgardner said in a statement.

Under its program to buy oil directly, DOE said it is seeking offers for crude-oil deliveries in February, March and April 2009.

It also said it would receive 2.178 million barrels of oil in the form of deliveries under the royalty-in-kind program that had been scheduled for delivery in 2008 and later deferred.

Write to Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@dowjones.com

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