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Donald Trump said he would immediately fill the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve if he becomes president in November, a move that could boost oil demand by hundreds of millions of barrels.
“We have to fill up the strategic stockpile immediately,” the Republican presidential candidate said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.
As of July 26, the SPR held 375 million barrels of oil, just over half its capacity. To bring it back to anywhere near the Trump-era levels, the United States would have to buy nearly 300 million barrels of crude. Such purchases would require congressional approval for new funds.
The world’s largest emergency supply of crude oil, stored in giant salt caverns along the Gulf of Mexico coast, was established in the 1970s in response to a series of oil crises.
In 2022, President Joe Biden released about 180 million barrels of oil to curb soaring fuel prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The reserve has since become a trigger point for Republicans, who have complained that the Biden administration plans to use the SPR to keep gas prices low in an election year. The United States consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
But in recent weeks, the White House has moved to fill the SPR, taking advantage of the oil price slump. Last week, the Energy Department said it had buy an additional 4.65 million barrels.
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, said on its earnings call on Tuesday that it expects such purchases to continue. “We are seeing more plans to replenish strategic crude reserves, which we expect will contribute to healthy oil demand in the coming months,” Chief Executive Amin Nasser said, referring to purchases by the United States and China.
Congress has now approved enough spending to buy about 15 million additional barrels of crude, said Giovanni Staunovo, a commodities analyst at UBS.
“The rational use of strategic petroleum reserves can reduce oil price volatility, so it makes sense to have enough reserves,” he added. “But given how much gasoline the United States consumes, it makes more sense to hold strategic reserves of refined products.”
Trump told Fox News that while he was president, “I filled it to levels they’ve never seen before.” According to EIA data, the SPR has been drained by 57 million barrels during Trump’s presidency.
Amrita Sen, research director at Energy Aspects, noted that during Trump’s presidency, Congress has mandated a series of sales reduce the size of the SPR to 400 million barrels by 2027.
Benchmark Brent crude futures rose 2.1 percent on Wednesday to $78.12, near levels before Trump’s comments.
