President Donald Trump has directed the U.S. Energy Department to buy “large quantities” of oil for the government’s strategic petroleum reserve following this week’s crash in oil prices. “We’re going to fill it right up to the top,” Trump said in a briefing on the coronavirus outbreak, adding that he’s instructed the Energy Department to buy crude “at a very good price.” Oil lobbyists had been pressing the Trump administration to make purchases for the reserve as U.S. shale drillers face the worst crude market collapse in a generation. Buying oil for the reserves means “saving the American taxpayers billions of dollars” and “helping our oil industry,” Trump said. It will also, he said, bring the nation further toward its goal of achieving energy independence. To contact the reporter on this […]