The Strategic Petroleum Reserve holds emergency crude in four salt-dome storage sites
along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Designed for 727 million barrels, it peaked
near full in 2010. Coordinated IEA releases since 2022 — plus the 180 mb Biden release —
drew it down to roughly half its design capacity, the
lowest level since 1984. Each tank below is scaled by capacity; the shaded portion is the
current fill.
Crude in storageEmpty capacitytank height ∝ design capacity · fill ∝ current stocks
Current level
—
— of capacity
—
Drawn since 2010 peak
—
peaked at 727 mb · 2010
Drawn since March
—
— mb/wk pace
Days at refinery rate
—
at current 16 mb/d throughput
Days at demand rate
—
SPR ÷ product supplied · "weeks of insurance"
SOURCE · U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy & Carbon Management, SPR
Quick Facts; U.S. Energy Information Administration, Weekly Petroleum Status Report (total
SPR stocks). Per-site fill levels are scaled allocations of the EIA weekly total in
proportion to design capacity until DOE per-site monthly data is wired in. Capacities are
authorized design; working capacity is somewhat less due to brine handling.