{"id":664976,"date":"2026-05-25T23:53:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T23:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/664976\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T23:53:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T23:53:23","slug":"americas-emergency-oil-reserve-is-shrinking-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/664976\/","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s emergency oil reserve is shrinking fast"},"content":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s oil stockpiles are shrinking rapidly, with U.S. crude inventories posting consecutive weekly declines, exports surging and the country drawing down from its emergency supplies to offset the impact of the war with Iran<\/a> on global energy markets.<\/p>\n

According to recently released figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), total crude inventories fell by 17.8 million barrels for the week ending May 15. The record drop follows several weeks of similarly steep declines that have brought total stocks (including those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) to their lowest level in almost a year.<\/p>\n

As analysts told Newsweek, the declines are eroding a critical safety buffer designed to protect the U.S.\u2014and the prices consumers pay at the bump\u2014during major supply shocks, and will offer the country less flexibility to respond if conditions deteriorate further.<\/p>\n

Since the beginning of the war on February 28, the closure of the Hormuz Strait\u2014through which around one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil previously passed\u2014has pushed global oil prices<\/a> to multi-year highs and led to what the director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has called the \u201clargest energy crisis in history.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in the U.S., drivers are facing significantly higher costs, with gas prices<\/a> having risen around 50 percent to an average over $4.50 per gallon, and other downstream products like jet fuel facing comparable spikes. And experts believe the drawdown of U.S. inventories could put further upward pressure on prices<\/a> going into the summer season.<\/p>\n

\"\"Where Is America\u2019s Oil Going?<\/p>\n

America\u2019s oil inventories increased gradually during the first year of President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s second term, in line with the inaugural pledge to \u201cfill our strategic reserves up again right to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, according to the EIA\u2019s latest Petroleum Status report, consecutive weekly drops have pulled stockpiles back down to June 2025 levels.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

At 445 million barrels, excluding those in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the agency said that U.S. crude oil inventories are around 2 percent below the five-year average for this time of the year. Distillate inventories\u2014including petroleum products such as diesel<\/a> fuel and heating oil\u2014have dropped even further below their typical levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo quote the Carpenters, \u2018We\u2019ve Only Just Begun,\u2019\u201d said energy analyst Tom Kloza, who told Newsweek that the figures are likely to \u201cspark concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kloza, chief energy advisor at Gulf Oil, added that industry observers appeared to be \u201cignoring the amber lights\u201d regarding the potential impact on gas and diesel prices in the U.S.<\/p>\n

And according to Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho, the current pace of drawdown means crude inventories are on track to dip below 400 million barrels in nine weeks for the first time since 2014. By that point, he told Newsweek, countries in East Asia and Europe will be \u201cscraping the bottom of the tank,\u201d requiring more exports to be shipped from the U.S. and further hastening the domestic declines.<\/p>\n

\u201cInventory drawdowns have acted as shock absorbers so far, helping to prevent oil prices from soaring even higher,\u201d said Bob McNally, founder and president of the consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group. \u201cBut as those inventories drop to operational minimum levels this summer, that shock absorber effect will wear off. <\/p>\n

\u201cGoing forward, the Hormuz supply loss will have to be met by demand reductions, which require even larger oil prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump Taps Strategic Reserves After Criticizing Biden for It<\/p>\n

Much of the recent decline has been a result of the U.S. releasing supplies from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve<\/a> (SPR). In March, the Trump administration announced that it would be freeing up around 172 million barrels<\/a> from the SPR over a period of 120 days as part of a global push to \u201clower energy prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has defended the move as necessary to blunt the economic impact of the conflict, saying the U.S. can refill the reserve later when prices fall, but this mirrors policies he once criticized his predecessor for carrying out.<\/p>\n

In 2022, President Joe Biden ordered the largest release in the SPR\u2019s history\u2014about 180 million barrels\u2014to combat soaring fuel prices following Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At the time, Trump and other Republicans argued that the reserve should be held for emergencies rather used to manage prices and called Biden\u2019s move a \u201cfutile attempt to reduce oil and gasoline prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, facing a wartime supply shock and rising fuel costs, the Trump administration has turned to the same tool\u2014albeit in a different geopolitical context.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth Presidents Biden and Trump have used it to put near term downward pressure on domestic gasoline\/diesel\/fuel prices,\u201d economist and international trade expert Willy C. Shih told Newsweek. \u201cBut as we can see, we can go through that oil pretty quickly with an impact on pricing that hasn\u2019t really felt that significant to most consumers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, we could drain most of the reserve if we don\u2019t resolve the Persian Gulf situation pretty soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Steps in With Record Exports<\/p>\n

And with the energy crisis proving even more acute in Asia and Europe, the U.S. has stepped in to stabilize global markets by boosting exports to record levels in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

That has drawn criticism from some who argue that the emergency supplies should be kept ashore and used to curb the spike in domestic prices.<\/p>\n

“Why would we be sending our oil overseas when Americans are getting fleeced at the pump?” Democratic Representative Ro Khanna<\/a> said on Fox News in April while discussing his legislation that would ban exports when gas prices exceed \u201c$3.12 per gallon for seven consecutive days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is that oil and oil products are globally traded commodities, and the shortages are impacting Asia and Europe much more than [the U.S.], so they are willing to pay more,\u201d Shih said. \u201cSo the oil is flowing to those markets, which means higher prices for us in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Shih told Newsweek that banning exports could carry significant geopolitical consequences and would \u201cundermine the U.S. position in the world,\u201d given that the country is in large part to blame for the current global shortfalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cRestricting exports would be counterproductive. Global oil prices would soar,\u201d McNally said. \u201cPump prices in the Gulf of America and upper Midwest might drop for a few weeks, but then they’d rise even further as refiners reduced operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as energy market analyst Philip Verleger said, the U.S. is the \u201clast man standing\u201d given that other markets have been so heavily impacted. Halting shipments abroad, he told Newsweek, could lead to a \u201creal trade war\u201d and the “possibility of a global recession if not depression.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"America\u2019s oil stockpiles are shrinking rapidly, with U.S. crude inventories posting consecutive weekly declines, exports surging and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,189780,12,101,4549,16428,29429,2402,801,228242,129,3310,4011,59434],"class_list":["post-664976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-diesel","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-exports","tag-freemium","tag-gas-prices","tag-inflation","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-middle-east","tag-oil","tag-oil-prices","tag-ro-khanna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}