Bloomberg Law
Oct. 20, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

What Tapping the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve Means: QuickTake

Kevin Crowley
Kevin Crowley
Bloomberg News

As US president, Joe Biden has a rarely used but potentially powerful tool to make up for energy supply shortages or economically damaging price spikes: the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR. Set up in the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s as a national energy safety net, it’s the world’s largest supply of emergency crude, stored in deep and heavily guarded underground salt caverns along the US Gulf Coast. Fighting rising gasoline prices, the Biden administration is in the midst of the largest SPR release ever.

1. How much of the SPR is being tapped?

About 165 ...

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