America’s emergency oil reserve is dropping toward levels not seen since the 1980s, as the United States rapidly drains its supplies to stabilize global energy markets rattled by the war with Iran.
According to the latest report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the U.S. has 365.1 million barrels of oil sitting in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in the week ending May 22, compared to 374.2 million a week prior and down by over 50 million barrels since the conflict began on February 28.
This drawdown has already brought the SPR to its lowest level since April 2024. And at the current pace, GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan predicts that the reserve is days away from reaching levels last touched in August 1983—when it was still in the initial “fill-up” stage.
This is despite President Donald Trump having criticized his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, in the past for “recklessly” draining the SPR during the 2022 energy crisis, and pledging during his 2025 inauguration to bring America’s emergency reserves “right to the top.”
Newsweek has contacted the Department of Energy via email for comment.
What Is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
Authorized in 1975 by President Gerald Ford, the SPR was created in response to the economic fallout from the 1973 Oil Crisis, which caused shortages, price increases and broad unease about the country’s vulnerability to global energy shocks.
Located across a series of underground facilities along the Gulf Coasts of Texas and Louisiana, the SPR has been dubbed an “emergency response tool” by the Department of Energy, and supplies have in the past been used to increase the amount of available crude on the market and put downward pressure on prices during “significant disruptions in oil supplies that threaten the U.S. economy.”
Releases occurred during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, after Hurricane Katrina damaged response facilities in the Gulf in 2005, following supply disruptions caused by the Libyan civil war, and to address the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The latter took place under Biden and, at around 180 million barrels, is still the largest single drawdown in the reserve’s 50-year history. This drew opposition from Republican lawmakers and Trump, who called it a “futile attempt to reduce oil and gasoline prices” and continued to criticize Biden for years for depleting U.S. emergency stocks.
“The strategic national reserves, which I filled up, have been virtually drained in order to keep gasoline prices lower, just prior to the election,” Trump said when launching his 2024 presidential campaign in late 2022.
And prior to the Iran war, the administration said it was successfully “refilling and repairing” the SPR after Biden “recklessly drained and damaged it for political purposes.”
Why Is The Emergency Stockpile Dwindling?
Since the war began, however, the U.S. has again relied on the SPR in one of its many attempts to curb the rapid rise in global oil and domestic gas prices.
In March, the Trump administration announced it would release about 172 million barrels from the SPR over 120 days as part of a global push to “lower energy prices.” This is taking place alongside dozens of other member nations of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which have collectively pledged to release 400 million barrels from their emergency reserves.
But while the latest emergency release has seen reserves drained rapidly, the amount of crude in the SPR has been dwindling for years.
“The SPR was irresponsibly depleted for many years prior to the Hormuz crisis and refilling it will also take many years and require congressional appropriations,” Bob McNally, president of the Rapidan Energy Group consulting firm and a former White House energy adviser, told Newsweek.
According to the Department of Energy, this coordinated release has been structured as an exchange, meaning that more than the original volume drawn down must be “returned to the SPR at a later date.”
McNally told Newsweek that when this occurs, it could put “upward pressure” on prices, but said the U.S. could mitigate it by doing so slowly.
And oil market analyst Thomas Kloza said while the drawdown may elicit “lots of criticism” and prove a “political liability” for Trump, this has “been a key factor in keeping crude oil price appreciation suppressed.”
Lipow Oil Associates President Andy Lipow told CNBC last month that the coordinated global release of oil reserves by the U.S. and others had helped prevent crude from reaching $150 per barrel, as some had feared.
However, Lipow said that the U.S. was “well on the way” toward the “minimum operating level” of 240 million barrels. Kloza similarly told Newsweek that as the SPR falls below 300 million barrels, this will create problems with “the integrity of the oil stored,” among other issues.
