The United States’s emergency stockpile of oil reserves has hit its lowest level since early 1983, as the Trump administration releases crude oil to prevent costs from skyrocketing as the war in Iran drags on.
Data released Monday by the Energy Department showed that, for the first time since it was filled, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell below 300 million barrels, and inventories are expected to keep dropping.
Recommended Stories
As of last week, the SPR held 298.7 million barrels of oil, down from 6.1 million barrels from a week prior. This is the lowest level since the reserves were being filled in January 1983.
Over the last two months, the Trump administration has recorded several historic lows for the SPR, falling far below the low hit under former President Joe Biden.
At that time, in July 2023, Biden approved the release of 180 million barrels, which sent stockpiles to a low of 346.7 million barrels.
Republicans have heavily criticized the Biden administration for its drawdown, claiming that it threatened the ability to respond to future energy crises and left the SPR with roughly 394 million barrels by the time Biden left office.
The SPR was created in 1975 in the wake of the Arab oil embargo, with the intention of protecting the markets and U.S. consumers from severe supply shocks and price spikes. It is one of the largest emergency crude inventories in the world, with a total capacity of around 714 million barrels across four main facilities.
Since 1985, the Energy Department has released more than 500 million barrels of oil from the SPR, nearly 70% of which was released between 2014 and 2025, according to estimates from the Government Accountability Office.
Much of this can be attributed to sales mandated by Congress rather than to those released or approved by the executive branch.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration said it planned to release 172 million barrels from the inventories, which could send the SPR to its lowest level since its creation, down to 243 million barrels.
Industry executives have warned that the draw is pushing the SPR to dangerously low levels, as it requires roughly 20% of its full capacity to remain operational.
In a report released earlier this summer, first reported on by the Washington Examiner, the Government Accountability Office warned that the SPR is facing significant risks to its ability to operate and meet future energy crises.
While part of this can be attributed to low inventory, the GAO primarily blamed the problem on a lack of upgrades stretching back to 2014, when the Energy Department first identified that a large portion of the reserves’ infrastructure had reached or exceeded its design life and needed to be replaced.
The war in Iran has put further pressure on stockpiles in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, as nations have rushed to release tens of millions of barrels of oil back into the markets to ease supply constraints in the Middle East.
The monthslong conflict has disrupted more than 11 million barrels per day of oil from global trade, primarily through an effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Before the war, about 20% of global oil demand transited the strait daily. Traffic began to tick back up in June, on the signing of the first memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran. But as officials have failed to finalize a peace deal, the number of ships transiting the strait has declined.
THE OVERUSED STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE IS AT RISK OF OPERATIONAL FAILURE, WATCHDOG WARNS
The Trump administration intends to replace all the barrels it released this summer, and then some. When the most recent drawdown was announced, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said his department could be replacing the crude with around 200 million barrels in the next year.
If the administration can deliver on that promise, it would leave the SPR with around 443 million barrels — 28 million barrels more than what was recorded in January 2025.
