Obama plans to fill U.S. oil reserve by early 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration said Thursday it plans to fill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its 727-million-barrel capacity in early 2010 and also replace next year a storage cavern at one of the reserve sites.

The emergency stockpile, which was created by Congress in the mid-1970s after the Arab oil embargo, now holds 719 million barrels of crude oil at four storage sites in Texas and Louisiana. Each site has numerous underground salt caverns that store the oil.

In its proposed government budget for the 2010 spending year, the White House did not name which storage cavern the Energy Department will replace. But it did say the cavern "poses an environmental risk for continued use."

(Reporting by Tom Doggett; Editing by John Picinich)