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Posted on 08/17/2026 5:57:46 AM PDT by Red Badger
Key Points
The rapid drawdown of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve could damage the caverns that store the oil, experts warn.
The SPR has tumbled below 300 million barrels for the first time since it was filled in the early 1980s, according to federal data released this week.
The SPR faces elevated risks to its operations and cavern integrity as inventories continue to drop.
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The caverns that hold the U.S. strategic oil reserve could get damaged by the rapid release of stockpiles in response to the Iran war, experts warned this week as inventories hit a four-decade low.
Damage to the caverns would make it more difficult to respond to future energy emergencies, the experts said. The oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, is stored at 60 salt caverns thousands of feet underground at four major sites along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas.
The SPR has tumbled below 300 million barrels for the first time since it was filled in the early 1980s, according to Department of Energy data released Monday. Inventories are depleting as the U.S. releases 172 million barrels in response to the supply disruption caused by the Iran war. The SPR will sit at around 243 million barrels after the drawdown is finished.
The Energy Department has said at least 70 million barrels must remain in the reserve to safely manage the caverns. Amos Hochstein, a senior energy advisor to President Joe Biden, disputed that figure this week.
“Don’t believe the people out of the government that are saying the SPR can go to 70 million barrels. It’s nonsense,” Hochstein told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. At that level, the reserve would be depleted to “the point of never resurrecting it,” he said.
Depleting the reserve below 300 million barrels risks damage to the caverns, the former Biden administration official warned in June.
“I don’t know anyone who believes we can go below 300,” Hochstein told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan at an Atlantic Council event. “I know plenty of people who think we can’t get near 300 because physically you will damage the caverns where the oil is stored.”
Energy Department spokesman Ben Dietderich said claims that the SPR’s storage caverns are at risk of collapse as oil is drawn down are false.
“The caverns are always full. All that changes is the ratio of oil and water that is filling them,” Dietderich told CNBC in a statement. The Trump administration is “responsibly managing the SPR as the critical national security asset it was designed to be,” he said.
Both sides of the political aisle have voiced worries about the integrity of the salt caverns. Republican lawmakers raised those concerns when the Biden administration released a record 180 million barrels in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The SPR fell below 350 million barrels in 2023 under Biden. It was refilled to around 415 million barrels before the Iran war.
The Government Accountability Office said in a May report that “repeated partial drawdowns followed by refill can leach a single part of a cavern repeatedly, leading to undesirable shapes.”
The majority of the SPR’s caverns were found to be in “very good condition” after the 2022 drawdown, according to the GAO.
“However, every drawdown cycle expands cavern volume and reduces the spacing between caverns within the salt dome, which ultimately reduces their long-term viability,” it said.
Operational floor
To release oil from the SPR, operators pump water into the bottom of the caverns to displace the crude to the surface and pump it through wells into pipelines.
Seventy million barrels is the strict physical minimum needed at the top of the caverns to keep the extraction pipes safely submerged in oil rather than water, said Siddharth Misra, a petroleum engineering professor at Texas A&M University.
But “the practical operational floor for the crude inventory is between 250 million and 300 million barrels,” Misra said in an email to CNBC. At current inventory levels, “cavern integrity and overall operational capability are at an elevated risk,” he said.
When the inventory drops below 300 million barrels, the SPR loses its ability to pump oil at rapid speeds to address emergencies, Misra said. The system’s pipes and pumps could also get damaged as the oil layer thins at the top and sludge rises toward the extraction intake at the cavern ceiling, he said.
Fresh water is often pumped into the caverns during rapid drawdowns, which dissolves the salt walls, Misra said. This “creates flatter, less stable roof and severely thins the critical salt pillars that separate adjacent caverns, greatly increasing the geological risk of a structural cave-in,” he said.
The SPR was originally designed for five full drawdowns. Instead, it has executed dozens of large and small releases over the past 40 years, Misra said.
“Because the system was not designed for this many cycles, the repeated injection of water and extraction of oil have caused severe cavern deformation, accelerated the rate of massive salt falls from the ceilings, and significantly weakened the overall structural integrity of the aging reserve,” he said.
Energy Department officials told the GAO that they are “holding the SPR infrastructure together with ‘Band-Aids,’ and that it is uncertain how long they will hold.” More than a quarter of the SPR inventory was “not available for drawdown due to a combination of construction outages and cavern outages” as of December 2025, the GAO found.
Analysts at Rapidan Energy, for their part, estimated the SPR has a “soft-ish floor” of around 170 million barrels, below which “cavern integrity and pumping infrastructure limitations argue against further draws.
Hochstein said a hurricane in Florida or Louisiana could put the U.S. in a tough position at current SPR levels. “Below 300 million, which is where we are now, it is not that we can’t do it, but it slows the flow and puts us in danger,” he said.
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Summary:
The inept and corrupt media didn’t give a shi...er...give a Dorkbama about the petroleum reserves under the child-sniffing President no-brain, but now, it’s a major concern.
We do need to replenish the reserves, but could we please take our entire cadre of left-wing media and force them down the caves before we refill with petroleum?
Saw this before. My reaction is why have a reserve of 300 or 250 or even 70 million barrels that we cannot access? Who created this plan?
The mediots never had a problem with Biden emptying it after Trump filled it.
BRAVE AI:
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was created by the United States Congress through the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), which was signed into law by President Gerald Ford on December 22, 1975. This action was a direct response to the economic disruption caused by the 1973–1974 Arab oil embargo.
Legislative Origin: The EPCA established the policy to build a reserve of up to 1 billion barrels of petroleum to protect the U.S. from severe energy supply interruptions.
Implementation: The Department of Energy (DOE) manages the reserve, which is stored in underground salt caverns along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana.
International Context: The creation of the SPR also fulfilled U.S. obligations as a founding member of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which requires members to maintain emergency oil stocks equal to 90 days of net imports.
This is silly news meant to scare people. Yes, the Iran conflict has prevented Trump from refilling the Strategic Reserve that Biden emptied. Yes, Trump has drawn on it a little more to prevent spikes in world wide oil prices. NO, it’s absolutely silly to worry because the World is quickly compensating to Iran loss of production by 1: Drilling and pumping more. 2: Opening new pipelines in the middle east that bypass Hormuz entirely. 3. Ongoing increase in other energy production. 4. Venezuela coming on line.
The Reality is, and I type this knowing that Trump is doing the right thing, is that Iran MAY NEVER be able to recover economically from this. Once the strait is bypassed, and other reserves come on line, the prices of oil will plummet. That combined with Russia trying to overcome it’s economic problems, will leave Iran in a permanent pickle. Iran will have oil like Junkyards have cars, nobody will want it accept at a price that makes it relatively unprofitable.
I agree that Americans are once again shouldering the burden of pushing Iran. Yet, Iran has been declaring war and killing Americans for 47 years. Let Trump continue to squeeze them financially, and let the Iranian people decide what to do when the economy is useless, and the IRGC isn’t getting paid.
Indeed and a Trump dig for the comrades.
U.S. strategic oil reserve could get damaged by the rapid release of stockpiles in response to the Iran war
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It is like the Left strikes a tuning fork, and they all begin humming in unison. This must be the fifth or sixth article on this I have seen the past few days.
It is absolutely something that needs to be addressed, but these articles simply (and conveniently ignore the fact that, as this graph displays, the Biden Administration drew down the SPR for political and ideological reasons to modern historic lows: 
The Biden Administration drew it down for two main reasons: Trying to wean the USA off of petroleum products and on to "renewable" energy, and raising the cost of oil to the point we could not economically renew the reserves.
Trump specifically tried to allocate money to do this late in his first term when prices of oil were lower, but was denied by Congress.
For context, we must remember the quote by Barack Obama which every Democrat of every stripe believes: "Well, I think that we have been slow to move in a better direction when it comes to energy usage. And the president, frankly, hasn’t had an energy policy. And as a consequence, we’ve been consuming energy as if it’s infinite. We now know that our demand is badly outstripping supply with China and India growing as rapidly as they are. If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them...under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket...I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly US automakers, then I think ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now..."
And Obama's Energy Secretary Chu said: "Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe..." And the Biden Administration drew 200 million barrels out of the SPR for 100% political reasons in advance of the 2020 midterm elections in an attempt to keep the prices low for Democrat candidates running for office. Contrast this with actions by Trump, who has tried repeatedly to put more oil into the SPR (especially when the prices were low) and who has had the levels drop during his term because he was contractually required by an international treaty to release oil, which he HAD to do, of 170 million barrels. Granted, that may have been triggered by actions against Iran, but if you believe as I do that the action is necessary, then this is an unavoidable cost of that.
Biden drains it to some of the lowest levels for political points, media dead silent. trump stuck with it drained now needs it for what it was intended, actual war... media Blames Trump.
These people are evil just like their father, the father of lies.
I don’t believe Trump filled it (I could be wrong) but he tried to when oil prices were low, and was rebuffed by a Democrat-controlled Congress who refused to allocate money for it.
But your point is overall a valid one.
As far as I can see, the reserve is so politicians can cover their asses for decisions they make that raise gas prices that could end up hurting their political parties chances in elections. LOL
Yes.
If Biden hadn’t drained it purely for political reasons, we might be sitting at around 500 million barrels. Instead he drained it down to just above 300 million barrels, and now the same people who supported Biden draining it are crying out “CRISIS!”
As are some dumbass Freepers on this forum with TDS.
I would like to see what the starting point was in January of 2025.
Surely you jest....
And don't call me Shirley.
Not many know that 100% of the contracts for SPR oil in the last year are swaps - not outright sales. The buyer is committed to returning the oil they removed.
Are WOMEN and CHILDREN effected the worst?
asking for a FRiend....
Just checked the EIA on the subject...
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCSSTUS1&f=W
Not having a kitten.
And if we refill it with cheaper oil, totally cool with that, too.
Trumphas been President since 2025. The blame is in him because he did not take corrective action to fill it up and start a war that would cause it to go down further.
MSM throwing more mud at the wall to see what sticks
Last week it was sailors on Abraham Lincoln were revolting.
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