By Arathy Somasekhar and Jonathan Saul

HOUSTON/LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Energy is exploring a plan to exchange heavy Venezuelan oil for U.S. medium, sour crude to fill up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, two sources said on Friday.

The Trump administration is looking to move the Venezuelan crude into storage tanks at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port from where the crude can be shipped to refineries. In exchange for the Venezuelan crude, companies will provide U.S. medium sour crude that can go directly into SPR storage, two sources said.

Exchanges have been used in the past by the government to release and acquire oil. Typically in an exchange, an oil refiner borrows SPR crude oil for a short time period, due to events such as hurricanes or temporary supply disruptions, and later replaces it in full, along with a premium of an additional quantity of oil.

The Department of Energy did not immediately reply to a request for a comment.

(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston, Jonathan Saul in London, Erin Banco in New York and Timothy Gardner in Washington D.C.; Editing by Nia Williams)