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Oil reserve at its lowest since 1982; official says Biden team left one site inoperable

Oil Reserve Hits Lowest Level Since 1982 as Energy Official Says Biden Team Left One SPR Site Inoperable

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanOctober 6, 2026 · 4 min read
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America’s emergency oil supply is at its lowest level in more than four decades, and the official now overseeing it says the previous administration made things worse by leaving one of the reserve’s four storage sites unable to operate. Under Secretary of Energy Kyle Haustveit told Fox Business that equipment bought to fix the problem was left sitting on the surface, never installed, and ruined by the weather.

The latest federal data show just how thin the cushion has become. According to Energy Information Administration figures reported by Rigzone, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve held 283.8 million barrels in the week ending Sept. 25, 2026, about 40 percent of its 714-million-barrel authorized capacity and the lowest level since October 1982.

“Completely wasted taxpayer dollars”

Haustveit’s account first aired on July 20, 2026, in a report by Fox Business correspondent Edward Lawrence that Fox News summarized under the headline that U.S. oil reserves had hit a 43-year low. He said the prior administration left one of the four SPR sites inoperable. As quoted by RedState, he said equipment purchased for the site “sat on surface” and that the previous team “didn’t install” it, leaving what he called “completely wasted taxpayer dollars.”

“They also failed to maintain some of the sites,” Haustveit said. According to RedState’s account of the interview, Haustveit said the current team has had to bring more equipment to the site because the equipment bought earlier deteriorated in the weather and is no longer usable.

The reserve’s four storage sites are Bryan Mound, Big Hill, West Hackberry and Bayou Choctaw. The reports did not identify which one was left out of service.

How the reserve got so low

The story of the drawdown starts in 2022. On March 31 of that year, President Biden announced a release of one million barrels a day for six months, 180 million barrels in all, the largest sale in the reserve’s history. He called it “a wartime bridge to increase oil supply,” according to a Gigafact fact brief published days later. At the time, the reserve held about 568 million barrels.

The six-month sale ran through the months leading into the 2022 midterm elections. When the Biden Energy Department later said it had “secured the 180 million barrels back,” the fine print told a different story. Its own July 2024 release shows that the department had directly purchased only about 43 million barrels. Most of the rest of the claimed total came from Congress canceling 140 million barrels of previously mandated future sales, oil that was never put back into the caverns, just not taken out.

What is happening now

The reserve has fallen further in 2026 for a different reason. In March, President Trump committed the United States to a 172-million-barrel share of a coordinated 400-million-barrel release by International Energy Agency member nations. The Energy Department has carried it out not as outright sales but as emergency exchanges: companies borrow the crude and must return it later with extra premium barrels. In an April 30 release, the department said earlier exchanges had been awarded with a reported 24 percent premium on returned barrels, so the reserve ends up with more oil than it lent.

That structure matters. A sale drains the tank and leaves taxpayers to buy the oil back at whatever the market charges. An exchange with a premium refills the reserve as the barrels come back and grows it in the process. But the exchange program depends on physical infrastructure that can move oil in and out, which is why a site left inoperable is not a paperwork problem. It is a hole in the country’s energy security at a moment when the world’s reserves are being tapped.

The cost of neglect

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve exists for one purpose: to protect Americans when supply is cut off. It is supposed to be filled in calm times and drawn on in genuine emergencies. Draining it heavily in 2022, refilling only a fraction of what was sold, and, by the current administration’s account, letting the equipment to repair one of its four sites rot in the open, leaves the next emergency with a smaller cushion and a bigger repair bill.

Biden’s Energy Department tied the 2022 sale to the market shock from Russia’s war against Ukraine and counted canceled sales toward the refill. But the bottom line in the data is not in dispute: the reserve now sits at its lowest level in more than 40 years, and the job of rebuilding both its barrels and its infrastructure has fallen to the people who inherited it.

They drained America’s emergency fuel tank in an election year, and, by the current team’s account, left the equipment to fix it ruined by the weather.

Editor’s note: This article covers a Fox Business report from July 2026 on the condition of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that drew renewed attention in October 2026.

Sources

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