U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve inventories fall by 3.1 million barrels to lowest since 1982

en.Wedoany.com Reported - For the week ending August 28, U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) crude oil inventories fell by approximately 3.1 million barrels to 286.6 million barrels, the lowest level since November 1982. In the prior week ending August 21, SPR inventories stood at 289.726 million barrels, a decrease of about 3.7 million barrels from the previous week.

This inventory decline occurred during the U.S. execution of its 172 million barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve release plan. On March 11, the U.S. Department of Energy confirmed the release of 172 million barrels of crude oil from the SPR, as part of a coordinated release of 400 million barrels of oil and refined products by International Energy Agency member countries, with the related crude deliveries initially expected to take approximately 120 days.

The U.S. Department of Energy subsequently advanced the crude exchanges in phases. On March 13, it launched the first exchange of up to 86 million barrels of crude oil, followed by exchanges of 10 million barrels and 30 million barrels in April; in May, it announced contracts for approximately 53.3 million barrels of crude oil exchanges, and in June, it launched another tender for up to 40 million barrels of crude oil exchanges. These transactions were conducted through exchange agreements, under which companies receiving crude oil are required to return crude oil plus additional volumes to the SPR within an agreed timeframe.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve currently has an authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels, with crude oil stored at four underground salt cavern storage sites: Bayou Choctaw, Big Hill, Bryan Mound, and West Hackberry. Data released by the U.S. Department of Energy on August 20 showed combined inventories of approximately 294.1 million barrels across these sites, including about 101.8 million barrels of sweet crude oil and approximately 192.3 million barrels of sour crude oil.