Houston — The US will sell 10 million barrels of sour crude from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve with deliveries planned for October and November, the Department of Energy announced Wednesday.

In a notice of sale Wednesday, DOE said offers must be received by August 28. The 10 million barrels of sour crude will be sold from the SPR's Bryan Mound, West Hackberry, and Big Hill sites.

DOE said the delivery period for the sale goes from October 1 through November 30 and that early deliveries will not be available for this sale. The sale's minimum delivery lot sizes are 100,000 barrels for pipeline, 250,00 barrels for vessels, and 40,000 barrels for barges.

"It is the responsibility of the Offerors to ensure that terminal and pipeline availability is sufficient to accommodate delivery of all awarded crude oil volumes," DOE said in its notice.

The sales will cover the fiscal 2020 SPR sale requirements in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 and the Consolidated Appropriations, 2018 Act.

As of Friday, the SPR held 644.8 million barrels of crude in four sites in Texas and Louisiana, including 250.3 million barrels of sweet crude and 394.5 million barrels of sour crude, according to DOE. The SPR has an authorized capacity of 713.5 million barrels of oil.

In March, DOE sold 4.32 million barrels of sweet crude from the SPR, part of a $2 billion modernization plan for the reserve, and the latest in an estimated 290 million barrels of congressionally-mandated sales from the SPR through fiscal 2027.

-- Brian Scheid, brian.scheid@spglobal.com

-- Edited by Jeff Mower, newsdesk@spglobal.com