How Low Can the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Actually Go?
Russia, Germany Add Diesel Supply as Fuel Market Scrambles for Barrels What I Cover My focus spans the global energy landscape and the technologies reshaping it, specifically focusing on oil and gas, renewables, and tech-driven market… The U.S.
Strategic Petroleum Reserve held just 283 million barrels of oil at the end of September, according toReuters, the lowest level since October 1982, back when the reserve was still being filled for the first time.
It's a scary-looking number, and most of the coverage has treated it that way.
But the barrel count is the easy part of this story.
Oil came out of those Gulf Coast salt caverns fast, because that's exactly what the system was built to do.
Getting it back in is slower, more expensive and more dependent on things nobody controls.
And a good chunk of that work will land on whoever is running the Energy Department two or three years from now.
The Reserve Started This War Already Depleted Congress created the SPR in 1975, after the Arab oil embargo showed how exposed an import-dependent America really was.
The reserve peaked at 726.6 million barrels at the end of 2009 and spent most of the 2010s hovering around 695 million, according toEIA data.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration sold 180 million barrels, which the Government Accountability Office calls the largest sustained drawdown in the reserve's history, according to an OctoberAtlantic Council brief.
By the end of 2023, the SPR was down to 354.7 million barrels.
DOE bought back about 59 million barrels, and Congress canceled 140 million barrels of previously mandated sales so the hole wouldn't get any deeper.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
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