The US plans to release 172 million barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, more than 40% of a wider release coordinated with allies, to help dampen prices spiked by supply disruptions from the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The US sale, announced late on Wednesday, is part of a 400-million-barrel release by members of the International Energy Agency. The US Department of Energy said the US drawdown would begin next week and take about four months.
The SPR currently holds about 415 million barrels, most of which is high sulfur, or sour crude, that US refineries are geared to process. The crude is held underground in hollowed-out salt caverns on the coasts of Texas and Louisiana that can store 714 million barrels.
Here is how US presidents have tapped the SPR in times of war:
RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE
In March 2022, the month after Russia invaded Ukraine, former President Joe Biden ordered the release of 180 million barrels over six months - the largest sale ever from the emergency stash. Biden, and later President Donald Trump, slowly bought some oil to replenish the reserves, but little has been added back as Congress needs to provide more money to do so.
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 IEA, 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 US ordered a 3.9-million-barrel test sale. In January 1991, after US 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 half was sold.
