• 3 minutes e-car sales collapse
  • 6 minutes America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide
  • 11 minutes Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  • 3 hours GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES
  • 1 hour How Far Have We Really Gotten With Alternative Energy
  • 11 hours If hydrogen is the answer, you're asking the wrong question
  • 4 days Oil Stocks, Market Direction, Bitcoin, Minerals, Gold, Silver - Technical Trading <--- Chris Vermeulen & Gareth Soloway weigh in
  • 6 days The European Union is exceptional in its political divide. Examples are apparent in Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, Netherlands, Belarus, Ireland, etc.
  • 1 day Biden's $2 trillion Plan for Insfrastructure and Jobs
  • 5 days "What’s In Store For Europe In 2023?" By the CIA (aka RFE/RL as a ruse to deceive readers)
Biden’s SPR Gamble Sparks Debate Over U.S. Energy Security

Biden’s SPR Gamble Sparks Debate Over U.S. Energy Security

The Biden Administration has significantly…

China Holds The Key To 2024 Global Oil Demand Growth

China Holds The Key To 2024 Global Oil Demand Growth

Despite an increase in China’s…

Standard Chartered: OPEC’s Latest Move Is Bullish

Standard Chartered: OPEC’s Latest Move Is Bullish

Commodity analysts at Standard Chartered…

Robert Rapier

Robert Rapier

More Info

Premium Content

How Big A Problem Is America’s Shrinking Oil Reserve?

  • The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was established in 1975 as a reaction to the 1973 oil embargo, is now at its lowest level since December 1984.
  • Ultimately, the SPR is not as important today as it was in the past, in large part that is because the U.S. is no longer heavily reliant on oil imports.
  • Historically the SPR tends to grow during Republican administrations and fall during Democratic administrations, although it did fall by 10% under Trump.
Oil Reserves

What is the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)? What are the implications of depleting the SPR, which the U.S. has been doing now since 2016? Further, what has been the impact of the rapid drawdown of the SPR that has taken place this year? Let’s discuss.

SPR 101

In December 1975, with memories of gas lines fresh on the minds of Americans as a result of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, Congress established the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The law was designed “to reduce the impact of severe energy supply interruptions” such as that caused by the embargo. Over time the U.S. government began to fill the reserve. At its high point in 2010, the level reach 726.6 million barrels. Since December 1984, the level has never been lower than 450 million barrels — until now.

Some have noted that the SPR is less important than it once was. U.S. shale oil production has enhanced American energy security and lessened the importance of the SPR by reducing our dependence on imports.

Consider that in 2005, the U.S. imported 10.1 million barrels per day (BPD) of crude oil, of which 4.8 million BPD (~48%) came from OPEC. The SPR contained 685 million barrels. With the U.S. importing 10.1 million BPD of crude oil at that time, that was enough oil to cover 68 days of supply.

Related: Japan Plans To Restart Seven Nuclear Reactors By Summer 2023

In 2021, the U.S. imported 6.1 million BPD, of which only 800,000 BPD came from OPEC. More importantly, a lot of that imported oil was refined and re-exported as finished products. Net imports of U.S. crude oil and finished products were actually -62,000 BPD (i.e., the U.S. was a net exporter).

Thus, one could certainly argue that the SPR is of less strategic importance than it once was, and that perhaps we no longer need a 700 million barrel reserve of oil.

President Biden Taps the SPR

On March 31, 2022 — in an attempt to fight higher oil and gasoline prices — President Biden announced the release of one million barrels of crude oil a day for six months from the SPR.

I remember when I first heard about it, I thought “Wow. That’s a lot.” In fact, I noted in interviews at the time that this level of release would likely help stem oil prices — at the risk of depleting our insurance policy in case of a supply disruption.

Consider that with the U.S. producing 12 million BPD, an extra one million BPD pushes total U.S. “supply” (which isn’t sustainable, because it relies on depleting the SPR) back up to the all-time pre-Covid high of 13 million BPD.

Politics of the SPR

Ultimately, drawing down the SPR was a political decision. Think about it. An administration that has frequently emphasized the importance of reducing carbon emissions is trying to increase oil supplies to bring down rising oil prices — which will in turn help keep demand (and carbon emissions) high.

But even though the Biden Administration wants to address rising carbon emissions, high gasoline prices cause incumbents to lose elections. So, they try to tame gasoline prices even though it contradicts one of their key objectives of reducing carbon emissions.

The SPR has now been depleted since President Biden took office from 640 million barrels to 450 million barrels. This depletion is consistent with recent history. Historically SPR volumes tended to grow during Republican administrations and fall during Democratic administrations. That pattern has held true since 1980.

ADVERTISEMENT

Presidents Clinton and Obama both used the SPR to try to ease high gasoline prices around election time, while Republican presidents (until Donald Trump) added to the SPR. President Trump drew down about 10% of the SPR during his term.

President Biden has announced steps to replenish the SPR, “likely after FY2023”, and in my opinion most likely after the 2024 elections. President Biden’s gamble to deplete the SPR in order to fight high oil prices may not hurt him at all. Of course, if for some reason we had a true supply emergency and found ourselves needing that oil, it would be looked upon as a terrible decision.

By Robert Rapier

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:


Download The Free Oilprice App Today

Back to homepage





Leave a comment
  • Mamdouh Salameh on September 23 2022 said:
    Data from the US Department of Energy (DOE) showed that the US strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) had fallen to 431 million barrels (mb) of crude oil, its lowest since 1984.

    In the short term, a reduction of this scale isn’t critical for US energy security since the US government intends to replace the SPR releases.

    Long term, this could be critical for US energy security particularly in view of the deteriorating situation between Russia and China on the one hand and the US and the EU on the other hand over the Ukraine conflict and Taiwan respectively.

    Another critical factor is the ever-shrinking global oil spare capacity including OPEC+’s making it more difficult for the US to replace the crude it released from its SPR amounting to 240 mb.

    Yet another critical factor is US growing crude oil imports exceeding 9.14 million barrels a day (mbd). US shale oil production is already a spent force.

    The whole world knows that the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) in cahoots with its cheerleaders the International Energy Agency (IEA), Rystad Energy, BP Statistical Review of World Energy and the Financial Times have been for years exaggerating if not lying about US shale oil production. Their rationale has been to give the United States some influence in the global oil market along with Russia and Saudi Arabia and to justify lies that the US has become self-sufficient in oil.

    Failure of shale drillers to raise production time and again has far less to do with capital discipline and virtually everything to do with the fact that the sweet and most lucrative spots in the shale plays have already been exhausted forcing drillers to move to poorer and more costly spots thus causing costs of production to rise and production to decline.

    My estimate of US oil production including shale oil doesn’t exceed 9.5-10.0 mbd. And while the EIA will continue to provide highly exaggerated figures about US shale oil production, rising US crude oil imports contradict such claims.

    Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
    International Oil Economist
    Global Energy Expert
  • Morgan Livie on September 24 2022 said:
    why is the cost of what those 190m barrels of oil taken from the SPR never mentioned at todays prices it will cost a STAGGERING $15,2 TRILLION for 190m barrels

Leave a comment




EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News