US Strategic Petroleum Reserve falls below 300M barrels for first time since 1983

The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve has dropped below 300 million barrels for the first time since Ronald Reagan was in his first term. The nation’s emergency oil stockpile, designed to cushion against exactly the kind of supply crisis now unfolding, is running dangerously low at a moment when the world can least afford it. As of late July 2026, SPR inventories sat at roughly 304.8 million barrels, down about 2.8 million barrels from the prior week. That number is expected to slide well below the 300 million mark in the coming weeks, and the trajectory suggests things get worse before they get better. How America burned through its rainy day oil fund The SPR was built to hold up to 714 million barrels across four salt cavern sites along the Gulf Coast, established after the 1973 Arab oil embargo convinced lawmakers that energy independence required a physical backstop. The latest wave of drawdowns traces directly to the US-Iran conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply typically flows. In March 2026, former President Trump authorized the release of 172 million barrels from the SPR to offset the resulti...