Lloyd’s List: The Strategic Petroleum Reserve

“International Energy Agency in move to push stocks into the market to meet a shortfall in supplies . . . . Some 30m reserve barrels were released into the US market from the SPR, which has helped to absorb tonnage as tankers were used to ship the oil along the US coast. According to the research department of US shipbrokers Poten & Partners, at 727m barrels the SPR in Louisiana is the largest stockpile of crude oil worldwide and holds enough oil to cover US consumption for about 38 days. After the Arab oil embargo in the early 1970s, the SPR was established to mitigate disruptions in physical oil supply and ensure that the US economy would not be beholden to another oil embargo.”