March 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. Energy Department said on Wednesday that it had awarded contracts for 30 million barrels of crude oil put up for sale from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

A total of 13 companies submitted 109 bids for evaluation, and contracts were awarded to seven companies, including 16.06 million barrels to Marathon Petroleum MPC.N, 1.27 million barrels to Chevron Corp CVX.N, 2.55 million barrels to Motiva Enterprises MOTIV.UL, 4.2 million barrels to Phillips 66 PSX.N, and 4.75 million barrels to Valero Marketing and Supply, the department said in a statement.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler)