Jun 15, 2000 - 09:13 PM

National Stocks Bail Out Oil Company The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - In the first such move in four years, the government on Thursday ordered 500,000 barrels of crude oil from the U.S. strategic reserve to be loaned to a Louisiana refinery that has been cut off from tanker deliveries.

The oil will begin flowing Friday from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve's West Hackberry site near Lake Charles, La., to a nearby Citgo refinery, the Energy Department said in a statement.

The refinery was cut off from supply ships this week when a dry dock collapsed into a vital waterway. Without an oil loan, the Energy Department said, the refinery would have started drying up as early as this weekend.

In return for the loan, Citgo will reimburse the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, kept in case of a national emergency, with "an equivalent value" of oil after the waterway is cleared, the department said. This will result in interest on the loan when Coast Guard cranes clear the area.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve last used its oil exchange authority in May 1996, when it lent 900,000 barrels to Arco because of a blocked pipeline

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGIOXKU4J9C.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), June 15, 2000