Friday September 22 6:28 PM ET Consumers Click 'NO' to Release of U.S. Oil Reserves

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced late Friday that the United States will tap its national reserves to tame oil prices, a move tens of thousands of consumers on the Internet opposed.

Richardson announced that President Clinton (news - web sites) authorized the release of 30 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) over a period of 30 days.

In polls conducted by search engines Yahoo! and Excite throughout the day, web users grew increasing uncomfortable with the idea of a release from the oil reserve.

In the ExciteAtHome Corp. (NasdaqNM:ATHM - news) poll that tallied over 37,000 votes by late Thursday, 66 percent of web users clicked ''No'' to the question, ``Should the U.S. use its oil reserves to offset high petroleum prices?'' Two percent were undecided.

Tallies from A Yahoo! Inc (NasdaqNM:YHOO - news). poll were even more numerous against tapping the reserve. On that Web site 70 percent clicked ``No,'' up from 52 percent in the morning. Yahoo! registered more than 19,800 clicks, and one percent were undecided.

The SPR, created after the 1973 Arab oil embargo for use in times of disaster and war, was last tapped in the 1990-1991 Gulf War.

The issue of releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), a gaggle of salt caverns that holds 570 million barrels of crude, has become highly political just 46 days ahead of the presidential elections in November.

On Thursday, Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore (news - web sites) urged the White House to swap out five million barrels in test runs to pressure oil prices that nearly hit $38 a barrel this week.

Under the swap plan, barrels of oil from the SPR would be effectively loaned to oil companies who would replace the borrowed oil at a later date with more barrels once prices fell.

Gore reversed his position from just last February when he advised against using the reserve to push down high heating oil prices.

His presidential rival Republican George W. Bush (news - web sites) accused Gore on Thursday of using a release from the SPR as an election ploy.

``The strategic reserve is an insurance policy meant for sudden disruption of oil supplies or for war. The strategic reserve should not be used as an attempt to drive down oil prices right before an election,'' Bush said.

Economists and analysts were divided on the issue, with some agreeing with Bush that the reserve should only be used in war or disaster times.

They also said a release would make the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces 40 percent of the global 77 million barrel per day oil market, reluctant to further increase production to knock down crude.

But others say a release would pressure crude oil prices by giving oil markets a signal the United States would use the reserve to in the future to put out blazing oil prices.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000922/wr/poll_oil_dc_3.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 22, 2000