Week ending
US emergency crude stockpile
US Strategic Petroleum Reserve Chart
Crude held in the US emergency stockpile, tracked weekly from the EIA against its 2020 peak and shown alongside WTI and Brent.
PEAK Jul 2020
656.1 million barrelsNOW Sep 2026
285.0 million barrels A policy stockpile, measured against its own record—not a season.million barrels · 4-week average -2.12
405.2 million barrels a year ago
-371.2 million barrels from the peak
Weekly level and change
SPR: level, weekly change and price context
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Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (Sep 2026). Published Sep 16, 2026.
How this series is sourced
View recent weekly values
| Week ending | Level | Weekly change | 4-week average | WTI | Brent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 11, 2026 | 285.0 million barrels | -0.40 | -2.12 | 99.08 | 111.83 |
| Sep 4, 2026 | 285.4 million barrels | -1.24 | -3.33 | 91.18 | 99.09 |
| Aug 28, 2026 | 286.6 million barrels | -3.12 | -4.55 | 84.62 | 89.73 |
| Aug 21, 2026 | 289.7 million barrels | -3.70 | -4.48 | 87.35 | 94.20 |
| Aug 14, 2026 | 293.4 million barrels | -5.27 | -4.51 | 84.05 | 92.51 |
| Aug 7, 2026 | 298.7 million barrels | -6.12 | -4.45 | 78.94 | 87.86 |
| Jul 31, 2026 | 304.8 million barrels | -2.84 | -3.67 | 84.51 | 91.63 |
| Jul 24, 2026 | 307.7 million barrels | -3.80 | -4.50 | 88.58 | 96.12 |
| Jul 17, 2026 | 311.4 million barrels | -5.06 | -4.94 | 80.77 | 82.93 |
| Jul 10, 2026 | 316.5 million barrels | -2.98 | -5.94 | 72.26 | 73.33 |
| Jul 3, 2026 | 319.5 million barrels | -6.17 | -7.43 | 70.48 | 69.70 |
| Jun 26, 2026 | 325.7 million barrels | -5.54 | -7.87 | 73.59 | 73.63 |
About this series
A stockpile that answers to policy, not to season.
Not commercial oil — sovereign insurance
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is crude the US government holds in underground salt caverns along the Gulf Coast, created after the 1973–74 oil embargo as insurance against a severe supply interruption. It is not commercial inventory: no refiner owns it, no trader can bid for it week to week, and it is released or refilled by decision rather than by market clearing.
No seasonal benchmark, by design
That is why this page looks different from the rest of StorageCurve. Every other curve here is measured against a five-year seasonal average, because gas and commercial crude follow a repeating annual cycle. The SPR does not. Averaging the last five years would blend a historically large drawdown into a "normal" band and produce a benchmark that describes nothing. The framing used instead is simply the level, the weekly change, the year-on-year change, and the distance from the peak observed in this series.
Read alongside, not instead of
Read it beside the commercial crude curve rather than instead of it. The two answer different questions: commercial stocks show what the market has to work with, while the SPR shows how much sovereign buffer sits behind it. A comfortable commercial reading paired with a depleted reserve is a materially different situation from the same commercial reading with the reserve full.
- Series
- EIA PET.WCSSTUS1.W
- Measures
- Crude held in the SPR
- Coverage
- Four Gulf Coast sites
- Unit
- Million barrels
- Released
- Wednesday, 10:30 a.m. ET
- Price overlay
- WTI and Brent weekly spot
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Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (Sep 2026).
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Open Energy-Charts sourceQuestions, answered from the method
Strategic Petroleum Reserve FAQ
What the reserve is, why it is not measured seasonally here, and how it relates to the commercial crude curve.
What is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
It is an emergency crude oil stockpile owned by the US government and held in underground salt caverns on the Gulf Coast. It was established after the 1973–74 oil embargo so the country could withstand a severe interruption to supply.
Which EIA series does this page use?
EIA API v2 series PET.WCSSTUS1.W — US ending stocks of crude oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, converted from thousand to million barrels. It is published in the same Wednesday release as the commercial inventory figures.
Why is there no five-year average or storage-pressure label here?
Because the SPR has no seasonal cycle to compare against. It is drawn down and refilled by government decision, so averaging the last five years would fold an exceptional policy drawdown into a supposed “normal” band and produce a benchmark that describes nothing real. Level, weekly change, year-on-year change, and distance from the observed peak are used instead.
How does the SPR relate to commercial crude inventories?
They are separate and are reported separately. Commercial stocks are owned by refiners and traders and respond to market conditions; SPR barrels are sovereign and respond to policy. StorageCurve excludes the SPR from the commercial curve and from every seasonal calculation on the crude pages.
Why did the reserve fall so sharply?
The series shows a large decline from its 2020 peak following the emergency sales authorised in 2022, alongside congressionally mandated sales. This page reports the observed level and the distance from that peak; it does not attribute movements to specific policy decisions or forecast the refill path.
Can you tell when the SPR will be refilled?
No. Refill depends on appropriations, purchase tenders, and prevailing crude prices, none of which are in this dataset. The weekly change and the year-on-year figure show what has actually happened; neither implies what happens next.
Does an SPR release lower oil prices?
A release adds physical supply, which all else equal loosens the balance. Whether that shows up in price depends on the size of the release relative to global demand, and on production, demand, and positioning at the time. The WTI and Brent lines on this chart are shown for context, not as evidence of causation.
Does this show how full the reserve is?
Not against design capacity. This page compares the current level with the highest and lowest values observed in the published series since 2019, which are facts drawn from the data itself rather than an assumed capacity figure.