U.S. Expecting Shortages, Plans to Tap Oil Reserves : Policy: Conservation programs are prepared. The U.N. agrees to permit humanitarian food aid to Iraq.

The Bush Administration is expecting worldwide oil shortages to hit as early as next month and is planning to tap the United States’ strategic oil reserves for the first time, Energy Secretary James D. Watkins disclosed Thursday.

Because of the impact of the Persian Gulf crisis, Watkins told senators, private stocks of petroleum may be insufficient to cover an anticipated shortage of 2.5 million barrels a day.

His testimony was the first indication that the gulf crisis is about to be felt in the crucial area of oil supplies, despite increased oil production by Saudi Arabia.

At the United Nations, the Security Council late Thursday approved arrangements for the dispatch of food to Iraq and Kuwait, despite the U.N. blockade, in the case of urgent humanitarian need. The council said that distribution should be monitored by the United Nations and the Red Cross or similar bodies.

The action cleared the way for an Indian ship to sail with provisions for thousands of Indians stranded in Kuwait by the Iraqi invasion.

Meanwhile, the White House said that a videotape of a speech by President Bush to the people of Iraq was on its way to Baghdad, carried by government courier, after Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Mashat refused to accept it when Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger attempted to present it to him at the State Department.

The ambassador said later that accepting the tape would violate diplomatic protocol, but he added: “We are going to broadcast it on prime time.”

The speech has been described at the White House as an effort by Bush to explain the reasons for the deployment of more than 100,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and to tell them that the United States has no quarrel with the people of Iraq--only with their leader, President Saddam Hussein.

Watkins, who offered an array of voluntary initiatives to encourage fuel conservation and promote domestic oil production, told a Senate committee that a projected oil shortfall this month of nearly 4 million barrels a day could be covered by the large stocks of oil accumulated by private companies. But he warned that by next month those supplies might not cover the projected shortfall of 2.5 million barrels daily.

Asked by Democrats on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to explain why the Administration had not already tapped the strategic reserve to hold down oil and gasoline prices, Watkins and his deputy, W. Henson Moore, said the reserve supply was intended to offset a major disruption in the flow of oil, rather than to manage prices.

The reserve was established as a result of the energy crises of the 1970s, but the stockpile was not created until the mid-1980s. It can be tapped on the orders of the President, but it would take at least 16 days before the oil, stored in underground salt domes in Louisiana and Texas, could begin flowing to commercial refineries.

“If there is a supply shortfall that would require us to go into the strategic reserve, it will hit in the fourth quarter,” Moore said.

The nation’s two most senior energy officials said any action Bush might take to begin using the reserves would be coordinated with the 22 nations in the International Energy Agency.

The U.S. strategic reserve totals 590 million barrels. The House on Thursday unanimously adopted a measure expanding it to 1 billion barrels. The Administration had opposed the expansion, but Moore said that Bush is now almost certain to sign the measure.

The other main reserves are held by West Germany and Japan, Watkins said.

With the United States importing about 40% of its oil needs, the Administration is preparing programs to promote conservation, expand domestic oil production and encourage industries and utilities to use coal, natural gas or nuclear power. The programs are designed to save 1.1 million barrels of oil a day by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, EPA Administrator William K. Reilly said amendments to the Clean Air Act that are being considered by Congress would reduce dependence on Mideast oil--but not until the year year 2005. The amendments would result in greater use of fuels produced from natural gas and such agricultural products as corn to power motor vehicles, Reilly said in an interview.

“This fuel switching will result in a minimum oil savings of 500,000 barrels a day,” he said. “This compares with 750,000 barrels a day which we had been getting from Iraq and Kuwait before the invasion.”

Among the conservation and production-enhancing measures Watkins presented was a renewed request to open up Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration--an effort that has been stalled since the Exxon Valdez oil spill in March, 1989.

The program also calls for:

Speeding up government approval of natural gas pipeline projects and incinerators that burn garbage to produce energy;

A presidential order directing federal agencies to buy more alternative-fuel cars and increase energy efficiency in government buildings;

A national advertising campaign to encourage Americans to conserve oil by reducing electricity use, replacing inefficient furnaces and using lower-octane gasoline.

Meanwhile, the Administration sought to head off growing sentiment in Congress to punish Japan, and possibly West Germany, for what some in the House and Senate see as insufficient support for the U.S. military operation.

On Wednesday, the House approved an amendment to the defense spending bill that would require the United States to pull 5,000 of troops from Japan each year if Tokyo fails to pay the costs of stationing U.S. forces there.

Responding to that measure, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said: “We don’t see any linkage between the situation with our forces in Japan and the situation in the Persian Gulf.”

The White House also disputed as “ludicrous” the view that the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April C. Glaspie, may have given Hussein the impression that Bush would look aside if Iraq invaded Kuwait, in a meeting she had with the Iraqi president one week before the invasion on Aug. 2.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that, according to an Iraqi transcript of the meeting, Glaspie did not object to the Iraqi troop movements, building at that time toward the Kuwaiti border.

Glaspie, who left Baghdad on vacation one day before the invasion, is now stationed at the State Department.

Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the airlift of Americans from Iraq and Kuwait is continuing. One planeload of 258 Americans arrived late Thursday afternoon in Raleigh, N.C., and he said two more jumbo jet flights were scheduled for today and Saturday.

A total of 920 Americans have been flown out of the two countries, Boucher said, but about 1,550 remain trapped there.

BACKGROUND

Congress created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 1976 out of concern that a cutoff in Mideast oil exports might threaten national security. It is designed to store excess crude oil for use by the armed forces and key industries in case of a shortage. The reserve, which currently contains 590 million barrels of oil and has a daily pumping capacity of 3.5 million barrels, is a complex of six water-filled salt domes on the Texas-Louisiana coast. Crude oil is pumped into the domes, displacing the water; the salt forms an impermeable layer that preserves the oil indefinitely. To retrieve the stores, seawater is pumped in, thus displacing the oil. However, before the reserve can be tapped, the President must declare a “severe” energy emergency. Japan, West Germany and Sweden maintain similar reserves.

Staff writers Maura Reynolds and Robert L. Jackson contributed to this report.