The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up almost 2,000 points during President Trump's press conference in the Rose Garden this afternoon. He announced that the US will purchase a great deal of oil to fill their Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR). "We're gonna fill it up. It's a good time to fill it up," Trump said.
Last week, in a stand off with Russia over the price of oil, Saudi Arabia offered steep discounts on their price, and increased production. This large supply of low cost oil tanked the price of oil worldwide in the US and Canada.
Last week, there were 635 million barrels of crude oil in the SPR. The SPR can hold 713.5 million barrels. This announcement that the US will fuel up is after the sharp decrese in benchmark futures oil prices.
The briefing was held in order to announce new waivers of long standing rules in the medical infrastructure to allow the medical community to do whatever they see fit for the prevention and containment of the coronavirus.