U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) crude oil supplies have fallen to under 300 million barrels, putting it at its lowest level since January of 1983.
According to CNBC, the SPR stockpile fell by roughly 6 million barrels for the week of August 3, bringing its total supplies to 298.7 million barrels. Prior to the start of the Iran war in late February, the SPR held roughly 415 million barrels of crude oil, before President Donald Trump ordered the release of 172 million barrels in March to account for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Those barrels have been gradually released from the SPR in each month since, peaking in May when nearly 40 million barrels were released.
The SPR has the capacity to hold up 714 million barrels of crude oil, and up until recently, it had consistently held more than 540 million barrels dating back to 1990. But as the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank notes, the SPR has been utilized more in the last five years than at any point in its 51 year history.
In 2022, President Joe Biden ordered the release of 180 million barrels to account for disruptions stemming from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, bringing the SPR down to 401 million barrels by the end of that year, and bottoming out at 347 million in 2023. Supplies were gradually replenished to just over 415 million barrels by the start of 2026, before the Iran war sparked a global oil shortage that has yet to be resolved.
The SPR acts as an emergency supply of crude oil under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Energy. The reserve was started in 1975 in response to the 1973 Middle Eastern oil embargo that strained the world's supplies and caused global oil prices at the time to quadruple. Its supplies are drawn down periodically to mitigate sudden spikes in oil prices and offset major disruptions.
