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

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

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

> 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.

I dunno, this seems like confirmation bias.

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.

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

Why???

> 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.

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.