Topping Off the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was established in December 1975 as a consequence of the Arab oil embargo of 1973. Its purpose was to have a 700 million barrel reserve of crude oil in the event the United States faced another embargo. The SPR received its first shipment in October 1977 after the salt dome storage facilities in the U.S. Gulf had been set up. As the following chart shows, it has taken 28 years for the SPR to reach its current near-full capacity.