How Have US Presidents Tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve During War?

(Reuters) – While the U.S. has no plans yet to sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world’s largest emergency oil stockpile, presidents have long tapped it during times of crisis in attempts to control fuel prices for U.S. consumers.

The administration of President Donald Trump is not currently discussing selling oil from the SPR, a U.S. source said on Monday.

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But if oil prices continue to rise following the U.S.-Israeli attacks on OPEC-member Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other top officials, the administration could take another look, analysts said.

The SPR currently holds 415.4 million barrels, of mostly sour crude, which has a high sulfur content that many U.S. refineries are geared to process. The crude is held underground in hollowed-out salt caverns on the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. Capacity is about 714 million barrels.

Here’s how the SPR has been used before in times of war:

RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE

In March 2022, the month after Russia invaded Ukraine, Trump’s predecessor former President Joe Biden ordered the release of 180 million barrels over six months – the largest sale ever from the emergency stash. Biden and Trump have slowly bought some oil to begin to replenish that, but little has been returned as Congress needs to provide more money to do so.

ATTACK ON SAUDI ARABIA

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia in 2019, prompting the shutdown of more than half the crude output in the world’s largest exporter. Trump, then in his first term as president, said his administration stood ready to tap the SPR if needed. Ultimately that did not happen as oil output recovered quickly from Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq plant and Khurais field.

LIBYA CIVIL WAR

In June 2011, former President Barack Obama ordered the release of 30 million barrels of oil from the reserve to offset disruptions to global markets from civil war in oil producer Libya. That sale was coordinated with the Paris-based International Energy Agency, resulting in an additional 30 million barrel release from other member countries.

OPERATION DESERT STORM

In 1990-1991,after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, former President George H.W. Bush sold about 21 million barrels in two phases. In October 1990, the U.S. ordered a 3.9 million barrel test sale. In January 1991, after U.S. and allied warplanes began attacks against Baghdad and other military targets in OPEC-member Iraq as part of Operation Desert Storm, Bush ordered the sale of 34 million barrels, of which 17.3 million barrels were sold.

Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Nia Williams