With large-scale outages to the U.S. energy sector continuing, the federal government said Thursday it authorized a release of oil from its strategic reserves. As of Wednesday, there were 678.9 million barrels stored in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The U.S. Department of Energy said Thursday it authorized the release of 200,000 barrels through a pipeline to a Phillips 55 refinery in Lake Charles, La. “The department will continue to provide assistance as deemed necessary, and will continue to review incoming requests for SPR crude oil,” Jess Szymanski, a spokesperson for the Energy Department, told UPI. “Should the secretary [of energy] decide to approve additional requests for an emergency exchange of […]