The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has dropped to its lowest level since 1982, Department of Energy data this week showed, revealing the continued drawdown of emergency oil as the nation weathers a global energy shortage.
The reserve shrank by more than 3 million barrels of oil over the week ending on Aug. 28, the DOE said, leaving the stockpile at 286.6 million barrels or about 40% of overall capacity.
The largest global oil supply disruption on record has catapulted U.S. gasoline prices above $4 a gallon, rekindled inflation and helped set the stage for November’s midterm elections.
It’s an old system underfunded for decades, cycled more than it was designed to handle, held together with what DOE officials told GAO are “Band-Aids.” The loan mechanism solves the pricing problem, but it doesn’t solve the fact that the physical infrastructure is eating itself with every cycle.
In response, they lowered fuel economy requirements on vehicles.
And made fuel more inefficient, bringing in “winter blend” earlier than ever.
Also they are now in a trade war with their largest oil supplier.
Big brain move?
But keep on driving those big ass trucks and making people commute to work!! Bravo, America!
Small trucks have been gaining in popularity here recently I’ve had guys in big trucks ask me about my Santa Cruz quite often, and they’re always dumbfounded to learn I can get 40mpg highway and still tow 3500lb.
…the U.S. sells the oil on the open market, which in theory should bring oil prices down by increasing supply.
They’re leaving it as subtext for some reason, but:
Gasoline is only as cheap as it is because we’re draining this reserve. Which we cannot do forever.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCSSTUS1&f=W
Since April we’ve been losing an average of about 6 million barrels of oil from our stockpile every week. Assuming the rate of decline stays about the same, our stockpile will be completely empty in about 46 weeks.
But I’m pretty sure I also read somewhere that the whole oil refining system will break down before the stockpiles are actually empty, and 46 weeks is hopefully a long enough time to figure something out.
They have to pump water in to the old salt mines in order to float the oil to the pumps. The problem is the water does what it did when they mined . It eats away at the salt. The system was never designed for a complete draw down and running it this low will have consequences. I don’t think they can get the last 20 percent at all because of sludge and corruption and such. And what if the water eats into a huge void in the earth? Oil goes away permanently.
I don’t think most people know they are in salt. Or that they were built in 1977 and only designed to last about 25 years.
Or more importantly, and to what you said, they were designed for only about 6 draw downs. We are way past that. They were never meant to be used and filled over and over again.
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Tanks?
It isn’t tanks, its in salt caverns. That were never built to last this long. That were never built to be depleted this low.
https://www.sandia.gov/labnews/2017/04/21/strategic-petroleum-reserve-taps-sandia-expertise-in-salt/
Crude is thick and they usually rely on gravity head to force it back out of the tank into pumping systems. When the level gets too low the flowrate out of the tanks drops rapidly, this is also what they talk about the “limit of efficient extraction”. This also applies to the SPR, which will hit its functional limit of efficient extraction… Oh, very conveniently right after the election.
The biggest positive thing I hope comes from all of this nonsense is that the world uses this as a turning point to renewables that they can control domestically or within their own communities. Everyone running their own thermal, solar, or wind would be amazing.
No kidding. There’s so much energy out there already we don’t need to keep burning dinosaurs at the rate we do. We have the technology for it, we just need the will.
The largest global oil supply disruption on record has catapulted U.S. gasoline prices above $4 a gallon, rekindled inflation and helped set the stage for November’s midterm elections.
The largest oil supply disruption on record is also the only self inflicted disruption that I’m aware of.
trump doing more to lower the production of fossil fuels than all pro renewable activist combined
Just goes to show the insane power imbalance at play.
The biggest most worthless malicious idiot can accidentally drive renewable energy forward just because of the chair he sits in, while a bunch of dedicated and passionate intelligent people working around the clock are silenced and shut down at every turn.
The largest oil supply disruption on record is also the only self inflicted disruption that I’m aware of.
Hi. If you consider refining part of the supply disruption, then Russia – formerly one of the foremost fossil fuel exporters – fucked itself even harder. Invaded their neighbors hoping they would roll over in three days. Day 1651 or something into the very special military operation, Russians are queueing hours for gasoline while importing fuel as fast as they can.
Very fair point! We’re still only 186 days into the Iran war in America, so there’s still time for trump to beat those numbers, and possibly without anyone needing to actually bomb our infrastructure. And you know Trump doesn’t like to lose.
They are legion.
Don’t worry everyone, trump has already blamed Biden (somehow) and promised to restock the reserves with stolen oil from Venezuela (somehow).
yeah timed to keep gas prices from exploding till after the election.
Catastrophic floods in areas where reserves are are a very real risk.
That would be the funniest thing global warming could do to reverse global warming.
