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Trump calls for plan to support oil, gas industries as prices tumble

Trump’s statement on support for oil industry comes after he said U.S. is looking at filling Strategic Petroleum Reserve

President Donald Trump in a tweet on Tuesday said he’s instructed his Treasury and Energy Secretaries to craft a plan to make financial relief available to U.S. oil and gas developers “so that these very important companies and jobs will be secured long into the future.”

Oil prices have plummeted after a global price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia and a steep decline in energy usage with so many nations around world shutting down large parts of their economies to slow the coronavirus pandemic.

Read: U.S. oil’s June contract tumbles 25% to around 21-year low as expiring May contract hangs below $0 a barrel.

Many U.S. energy companies have laid off workers, especially independents involved in oil fracking. The U.S. is now the world’s largest producer of oil and gas.

Oil futures saw further pain on Tuesday, with the most-active June contract CLM20 for the U.S. benchmark falling to a roughly 21-year low a day after the May contract made history by settling in negative territory for the first time ever.

Trump didn’t provide further details on his plan for financial support for the energy industry but on Monday, the president said the U.S. was looking at adding 75 million barrels of oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, buying the oil or “at a minimum” charging companies to store oil in it.

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