Though note that, for some reason, the last 250M barrels are not physically extractable from the SPR, and the red line has dropped to 284M.

It's a big drop, but most of it happened in 2021-2023, when reserves fell by roughly 300K from 650K to 350K. The SPR only recovered a little bit before the recent 130K drop from 415K to 285K.

What was the SPR being used for a few years ago?

Edit: Whoever downvoted, would you be willing to explain why?

every time oil is removed the walls are damaged (because they pump in water to force out the oil, which dissolves more of the walls)

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-the-strategic-pet...

We can simply get rid of most oil - Just ONE square mile of batteries and a TOTAL of 100 x 100 square miles of Solar can power the entire USA 24/7.

It is because of world wide adoption of EVs that the fossil fuel demand has reduced and stabilized gas prices in the US.

See : https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/batteries-have-unlo...

Stabilizing ourselves and our allies when an enemy attacks and disrupts petroleum supplies is why we have a strategic petroleum reserve.

It's just incredibly dumb to start a war that will tank global petroleum supply chains before stocking back up.

Trump spoke about this publicly, promising he would "fill the reserves right up to the top", then when in power, didn't do that but instead started a war with Iran while the reserves were still low.

It's mind boggling how stupid it all is.

It also stabilized following the elections that year.

> that particular war was not of our doing

Well... arguably it is partially our doing. Not for the reason's Tucker Carlson & Russia say, but that Obama and later Biden totally sat on their laurels after the Crimean invasion, totally paralyzed by fear of escalation and political fallout.

>It looks like it started to plummet in April 2022, which was on Biden's watch. It apparently was in response to supply chain shocks spiking oil prices due to the start of the war in Ukraine.

it wasn't simply supply chain shocks, it was supply chain shocks in a time of rampant inflation caused by the endless stimulus checks and programs after Covid.

Supply chain shocks cause "legitimate" price increases, it's not "too many dollars chasing too few goods", rather the value of each dollar simply doesn't stretch as far any more, and while trying to hold the line on prices is a fool's errand, trying to make that case to the public in a time of rampant inflation is not going to succeed either

Selling oil out of the SPR is the new One Weird Trick Military Planners Hate! Biden was a generally fine president, but pulling oil out of the SPR to balance the budget was an extremely ugly way to do it, and hopefully that loophole gets plugged going forward.

If the Republicans actually had that position instead of being funded heavily by oil money they would be #1 Super Top Solar/Green energy party because that is the path to energy independence and to truly reduce the influence of OPEC - even outside of the fact that peak oil is over and it will continue to get more and more expensive to pull oil out of the earth. But they’re not because your assumptions are misplaced.

I don't think your interpretation of Democrat policies is correct. I've seen nothing regarding a desire to import oil rather than produce it domestically, something that is fundamentally different from declining to expand domestic production (we are already a net exporter after all).

The democrat position is more of, move off of oil to electrification, such that despite no expansion we never have to import, while simultaneously reducing that domestic impact.

>The counterpoint is that the US is producing more crude domestically than ever with more efficient drilling technology:

From my understanding they are running refineries at max utilization and not able to do required maintenance due to this crisis. This is what worries me about the October surprise. A couple of well timed "screw ups" caused by lack of maintenance when the whole system is already at its breaking point can spell trouble.

About 40-45% of US petroleum use is burning it in passenger cars.

We're already a net exporter of oil; if we pushed a bigger fraction of cars and other transport uses to electrification we'd be a massive net exporter.

That wouldn't completely insulate us from global energy markets but it'd do a lot.

The primary Democratic position is demand reduction, not importing. Also plenty of democrats have allowed drillibng and pipelines.

This is not really supported by energy data. Under Biden/Harris, US crude production hit multiple consecutive all time highs and made the country a net exporter since 2020. In my world, that's the opposite of "minimizing domestic drilling." And producing oil doesn't prevent foreign wars; oil is a global commodity, energy markets are subject to global pricing events and disruptions anywhere drive up fuel prices in the US. Prices at the pump here don't care where crude was pumped. And the strange connection you draw between energy policy/oil reserves and offshore factory conditions conflates drastically different economic drivers. There is a real moral conversation to be had here about supply chain ethics but it doesn't get connected this way. This is a really shallow, cliche framing about [drilling vs importing] rather than [fossil fuel dominance vs clean energy transition], and drawing a preference to a party based on a faulty view of those is, disappointingly, Peak Political Affiliation 2026.

Let's also not pretend that the current Republican administration's insane military campaign to disrupt oil supply and markets, isn't helpful to, I don't know, say, Kremlin's oil and gas export revenues, and say, how higher global benchmark crude helps to, say, finance a domestic war economy while buffering against sanctions. Just a tiny thought to consider when holding a preference for Republican oil strategy.

Your position appears to be based on crude production and drawing an equivalency between Middle East crude and US crude. They are unfortunately not equivalent. I agree that it’s amazing that the US doesn’t wholly depend on the Mideast for oil, but until we can process our own crude as cheaply as Mideast crude can be processed, strife in the Middle East will still push energy prices up.

There is no partisan political strategy story to be read into the drawdown of the SPR. Biden ("the democrats") drew it down by an even larger amount right after the invasion of Ukraine to stabilize prices, and now before it recovered Trump is drawing it down even further to stabilize prices from his new war.

> The counterpoint is that the US is producing more crude domestically than ever with more efficient drilling technology:

Your link doesn't back up your claim that it's more efficient. And believing that fracking is "more efficient" than simply drilling into a pressurized gusher pocket is a boggling conclusion.

Isn't US domestic oil exported to EU and others because its medium to light crude which US refineries are not calibrated for? Its my understanding US refineries are calibrated to refine Heavy crude which comes mainly from Canada and some from Venezuela.

Whether or not I agree with your views, I thought your comment was thoughtfully constructed and am not sure why it's being downvoted.

So the Green New Deal was about enabling foreign oil producers?

Heritage Foundation has long advocated for emptying the reserves. They wrote Project 2025 but I'm not sure it was an explicit goal in the actual blueprint we got to see

There was trust left in the US government to be scuttled? Could have fooled me.

So how exactly are they supposed to swoop in? With what?

I dunno, this seems like confirmation bias.

> Project 2025 fairly implicitly stated that the idea was to scuttle trust in the US government so badly that there would be a case for private equity to swoop in and save the day. That's what you're seeing.

Could you quote the exact text you're interpreting here?

(Not the whole Project 2025 text; the specific sentence(s) that imply that.)

Project 2025 can be anything you want it to be.

If you want to be unreasonably sympathetic to the trump admin, they could be assuming that iran et al are trying to hold out until the election on the belief that that might change something (see also the timing of houthi offensive and attacks on saudi arabia), and that if trump get over the hump of the election, iran no longer has a way to affect anything short term and will throw in the towel as they lack the ability to hold out long term.

Personally i think trump does not have a plan, but if you tried to sanewash it, i think that is the best rationale i've been able to find.

Shouldn't they at least care about the presidential election 2 years after that?

They aren't winning the midterms with this. Hopefully the grifter hopefuls will take the lesson to heart.

SPR cannot meaningfully lower prices at the pump. It's simply not big enough. The only thing that does that is an end to the war.

> lack of buying for 4 years before Trump ever got back into office; and it fell completely on deaf ears.

So Jan 2021-Feb 2022 Biden didn't top up the SPR, something that definitely makes sense given the fiscal situation.

From Feb 2022 onwards, oil prices spiked because Russia invaded Ukraine. People started putting stupid "I did this" stickers on gas pumps and Biden drew from the SPR when it was nowhere near empty.

Trump doesn't refill it, with both houses of Congress, then starts a war with a nation who every military analyst knows could close a huge oil passageway.

> In 2020 when the SPR wasn't full and oil was literally negative, Congress blocked the administration from buying oil to fill it

Why???

Biden was not the president in 2020.

You've really goofed your dates up.

Pretty much everything you've said is true, but it happened in 2022. Biden wasn't even POTUS in 2020.

How is that intention going to stop the war with Iran and open the strait of Hormuz?

You seem to basically understand that Trump is a chaotic fool yet you've still bought into the 4D chess explanation for this war.

Ignoring the reality that he let himself be talked into the Iran war by Israel, over strong US military objections. And suggesting instead he's secretly starting a war with China by cutting off oil to the entire far east.

A move which has only strengthened Chinas power in the region.

It's recursively stupid all the way down.

The Iran War was predicated on a manufactured threat of them getting nuclear weapons. That's been the line for some time.

All reports about the initiation of the war was that Bibi wanted it and manipulated Trump to join in (against the advice of all of those around him warning that the very problem we have now would in fact occur).

They would have recharged the reserves if that was really the reason and they would have readied themselves to the upcoming closure. They didn't expect the strait to be closed and got caught with their pants way down. Using the SPR is just another sign of how incompetent and out of options they are. It was already on a low level when the war started due to the previous withdrawals from the Russian war.

Thats the Economist's title on the article.

They'll push that date to November 4 any way they can.

Indeed. The global production was closely aligned with consumption. Even if everything became normal tomorrow, there just isn’t enough slack capacity to make up for the loss over anything but years.

The Strait was moving 20M bpd. Say with some over production and clever rerouting, the world was only at a 10M bpd deficit. This has been happening for six months now or 180x10M bpd = 1800M barrels that were never taken out of the ground.

Which is to say, you would need the world production to over produce by 10M bpd from previous levels for six months just to break even. That is not feasible. After this crisis, I suspect many governments will wish their SPRs were larger.

If it can be used somewhere in place of other oil, then they can send the compatible oil to the reserve. So is this what Trump means by US oil companies returning 1.25 barrels for each 1 they take? Doubt he's really thought it through.

You have your facts backward. The US refineries are famous for being some of the best in the world at refining sour crude. It is why so many countries ship their sour (and other difficult) crudes to the US for refining.

US refinery capacity is much larger than its world-leading oil production. Oil refining is a major export business for the US.

There's already US infrastructure to process sour crude from Mexico. Who said this is a problem? When I search this, I see that Exxon's CEO called it uninvestible due to geopolitical risks, but Chevron claimed to be ready to go ahead.

US is actually really good at processing that type of crude. Much better than the oil we drill domestically. Don't forget that US oil companies used to dominate Venezuela. In 1976, Venezuela bought out the companies and paid them what they claimed they were worth on their financial/tax ledgers. Ofc all the companies massively deflated their worth to avoid taxes so this angered them and they've never really stopped complaining about it.

Trump has basically enacted their revenge for that.

This is not true. Don't make things up.

In 2015 the SDR was authorized to sell $2 billion worth of oil during FY2017–2020 and use the proceeds for infrastructure upgrades and life-extension work at the reserve's aging storage facilities.

There were also sales between 5 and 10M barrels a year to fund the "21st Century Cures Act" (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/11/25/5031763...)

The background to this was the increased domestic oil production which made the SDA seem less necessary.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=29692

But why?

I do not buy that the SPR is effectively empty at 35-42% of capacity

If I knew what I was doing (or asked a clever AI for help and trusted it) I would bet long on a transition off oil. Most countries other than the US are posturing for it, my retirement is in 30-40 years if I stay empoloyed, and I think even America will pick up solar in the long run.

I don't know a ton about business. But what I realize is companies should not be tied to their methods of their business. An oil company should be an energy company. A car company should be a transit company.

Tied to the discussion about DHH and Rails this week: I can kind of respect DHH saying implicitly "The days of Rails are waning due to LLMs". He's not attached to a framework, he's attached to an idea of people building apps easily.

In Canada gas is priced per liter. Long ago it was under $1.00 and everyone was wondering what will happen when the price goes above a dollar. Then the signs could only do up to 1.99. Then it went over $2. Don't worry. They'll change the signs and the pumps and everything. Cost of doing business.

Fun fact. Oil and gas prices aren't coupled as much as people think they are. I think these days about 50% of the cost is the oil. When oil goes up it's an excuse to raise prices. When oil price goes down nobody lowers gas prices. There's refining costs, distribution costs, taxes, and oh, let's not forget - PROFIT! (about 20%-30%, mostly for the oil companies, not the gas stations that have pretty low margins). Another thing to consider is that the oil refined into the gasoline you're buying at the pump was not bought at today's future contract prices. You can bet your *%# that the refineries are hedging and trying to keep their costs as low as possible while selling to you as high as possible. Their profit skyrockets when oil goes high. This also influences how much reserves and storage are available. The reserves, oil in transit, and other storage all act as buffers. Point is that's not as simple as it seems.

I'm so happy that I drive a Tesla. I haven't been in a gas station in years. Switch to EVs guys!

> . I want to know what happens when the sign runs out of digits at $10.

If you liked Y2K, you're gonna love 2.2f!

The Simpson's had a nice take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dxVwA7bU2E

> US could simply sign a favorable (for Iran) deal while waving a white flag emblazoned with "Mission Successful

Trump is constitutionally[1] unable to do that. He cant compromise or look weak, or it'll conjure the ghost of Fred Trump calling him a loser one more time. Ironically, this fear of losing is how becomes a loser: first against(!) Covid-19, when he thought wearing a mask made him look weak, and now against Iran.

1. His make up, not the document