America’s oil reserve falls back to its 1982 level
In seven months, Washington burned through nearly a third of its strategic oil reserve in the war on Iran — and now promises to refill it with Venezuelan crude it does not yet control.
For the week ending September 18, 2026, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) held 284.6 million barrels, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA): 400,000 fewer than the week before and 121 million fewer than a year earlier. The stockpile fell to 283.8 million barrels in the subsequent reading by the US Department of Energy (DOE), the lowest level since October 1982.
The drain dates to March 2026, when Donald Trump authorized the release of 172 million barrels as part of the largest coordinated operation in the history of the International Energy Agency (IEA): 400 million barrels released by 32 countries. The trigger was the war the United States and Israel launched against Iran on February 28, 2026, answered by Tehran with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which carries 20% of the world’s traded oil and liquefied natural gas.
The reserve, built for 714 million barrels across 60 salt caverns between Louisiana and Texas, now operates near its floor: US law sets the operational minimum at 252.4 million barrels, and the industry’s accepted range runs from 250 million to 300 million. About 133 million of the barrels released went out as loans to oil traders — Shell, Vitol and Trafigura — contracted to return 1.25 barrels for each barrel taken. For Ben Cahill, an energy analyst at the Atlantic Council, a think tank based in Washington, pressing on with releases at this pace is ‘a self-defeating move’.
Washington spent in seven months the cushion rebuilt since 2023 — and pawned the refill on oil still underground.
The Biden precedent
Washington has treated the reserve as a weapon against high prices before. In March 2022, after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Joe Biden’s government authorized the withdrawal of 180 million barrels, the largest to that point, with crude at US$139. The stockpile fell from 566 million to 347 million barrels by June 2023 and was gradually rebuilt to 415 million by February 2026.
The Venezuelan bet
The refill, this time, depends on the deal announced on August 28, 2026 with the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez in Venezuela, which Trump presented as ‘the biggest oil deal in history’: majority US control of fields holding about 65 billion barrels in reserves, equivalent to 141% of America’s proven reserves. Trump promised to refill the reserve ‘soon’ with that oil, but Caracas has yet to say which fields will be developed or which companies will operate them.
The reserve was created in 1975 as insurance against another embargo like the one of 1973, and earlier withdrawals were fractions of the stockpile: 17.3 million barrels used in the Gulf War, 20.8 million after Hurricane Katrina, 30.6 million in the Libya war. The last two operations cut the stockpile nearly in half, from 566 million in 2022 to 283.8 million in September 2026. The insurance became ammunition in price wars, and the bill for the refill now rests on a foreign deal whose oil is still underground.