(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-03 11:36

WASHINGTON -- US President George W. Bush will not tap oil reserves to drive down soaring prices, the White House said Wednesday.

"This president would not use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to manipulate prices unless there was a true emergency," said White House press secretary Dana Perino.

"Right now we understand that prices are high and demand is extremely high," she said.

However, doing a temporary release of the SPR is not going to change prices very much, she said. "We know that from past experience."

Oil prices soared to 100 dollars a barrel Wednesday for the first time ever.

The US SPR was established in December 1975, following the Arab oil embargo, but the first barrels were not delivered until the summer of 1977.

It currently holds 695.5 million barrels of oil in inventory to be used in a supply emergency, according to the US Energy Department.

In his State of the Union speech to Congress in January 2007, Bush said that he wants to eventually expand the oil stockpile to 1.5 billion barrels over the next 20 years.