U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve Holds at 282.983 Million Barrels, Near October 1982 Levels
Key Facts
Oil inventories in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve held at 282.983 million barrels in the week ended October 9, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, near October 1982 levels, as international efforts to address supply disruptions continued. The reserve recorded the same balance in the week ended October 2, after standing at 283.767 million barrels in the week ended September 25. Inventories stood at 415.442 million barrels in the week ended March 6, before the U.S. drawdown program was announced. For historical comparison, the balance was 280.802 million barrels on October 15, 1982, according to the agency. The current level follows months of emergency stock releases to address oil market disruptions caused by the war in the Middle East.
International Energy Agency member countries decided in March to make 400 million barrels from their emergency reserves available to address disruptions caused by the war. The decision involved drawing on oil held by members to supply the market in response to those disruptions, according to the agency. In its October 7 update, the agency said about 325 million barrels had already been released under the collective action. It estimated that fulfilling outstanding commitments would add about 100 million barrels to the market. The reserve mobilization comes amid disruptions in a region where an average of 20 million barrels a day of crude and petroleum products passed through the Strait of Hormuz during 2025, the year before the war.
The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has an authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, compared with the current balance, which has declined since March. The reserve's facilities store crude oil in underground salt caverns, according to the department's description of its storage infrastructure. These caverns are spread across 4 designated reserve sites, allowing oil to be held within the U.S. strategic storage system. The sites are on the U.S. Gulf Coast, where the department selected coastal storage locations to connect them to the country's commercial oil transportation network. The department said these locations provide "the most flexible means of connecting to the country's commercial oil transportation network," explaining its choice of locations for the reserve facilities.
Across International Energy Agency member countries, governments still held about 1.1 billion barrels of emergency stocks, according to the agency's October 7 update. These government reserves include more than 200 million barrels of diesel among the volumes remaining with members after the collective releases. In a statement on the state of the global diesel market, the agency's executive director, Fatih Birol, urged member governments to assess the need to draw on additional stocks of the fuel. Birol asked members to "assess whether additional diesel releases are necessary." The call includes determining the volumes and timing of any approved release, alongside assessing the need for it.
In an assessment of supply risks, Goldman Sachs put the risk premium in spot Brent crude at about $25 a barrel above fair value in its October 16 report. The bank linked the premium to the possibility of an escalation that would damage oil supplies and lead to further inventory depletion. According to its estimates, the global supply deficit narrowed to 0.3 million barrels a day in September. That compares with a deficit of 7.2 million barrels a day in March, according to the same report, reflecting a substantial narrowing of the gap between supply and demand. Escalation and supply disruption risks remained the basis for the bank's estimate of the spot Brent premium, despite the narrowing of the global deficit over that period.
The U.S. program, meanwhile, is structured as an exchange requiring companies to return oil borrowed from the reserve to the Department of Energy, along with additional barrels representing a premium on the volumes withdrawn. When announcing the March plan, the department said delivery of the barrels would take about 120 days, based on the drawdown rates planned at the time. It also announced arrangements to return about 200 million barrels to the reserve during the year following the announcement. The exchange terms thus combine oil deliveries to companies with their obligation to return it later, along with the agreed additional volumes. The U.S. Energy Information Administration set October 21, 2026, as the date for the next release of Strategic Petroleum Reserve inventory data.