Data of the Department of Energy’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) show that the US overall oil inventories, including commercial stocks, dropped to 340.3 million barrels – the lowest level since 1983.
The Hill, citing SPR data on Monday, attributed the decline to large-scale withdrawals announced by President Donald Trump’s administration in last March.
The low SPR level is not a shock – the Trump administration had announced that it would release 172 million barrels from the reserve over the course of 120 days, The Hill recalled. The last time that levels were this low was 1983, when the Reagan administration was filling up the reserve for the first time.
The US established the emergency oil reserve in 1975 after an oil producer embargo against the country triggered an energy crisis. Levels were also lowered recently after the Biden administration released 180 million barrels in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil prices spiking.
The administration said in 2024 that it had replenished the reserve, which can hold up to 714 million barrels of oil.
Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Gulf Oil, told The Hill ahead of the data’s release, “I’m not really worried about the SPR,” adding that the US appears to be in decent shape.
The US consumes about 21 million barrels of oil on any given day. The report comes as the US and Iran say they’ve reached a deal that’s expected to end the war and allow more ships into the Strait of Hormuz, which has been a key oil shipping chokepoint since the war’s start. – Kuna
