US oil reserves are so low, the caverns holding them could be damaged
independent.co.ukIt was not designed for American politics. This feels like a failure of applying realistic, knowable expectations.
The problem seems to be the rate of extraction and replacement, not the total volume ever extracted. I could be reading it wrong, but that was the impression I got.
"The reserve was designed to handle five full drawdowns over its lifespan. Instead, it has undergone dozens of cycles over 40 years.
Misra told CNBC that “because the system was not designed for this many cycles, the repeated injection of water and extraction of oil have caused severe cavern deformation, accelerated the rate of massive salt falls from the ceilings, and significantly weakened the overall structural integrity of the aging reserve.”
The only major drawdowns occur 2020-present.
And that's a problem if the system hasn't been designed for such an operating regime, which the article indicates is the case.
Think of the memory effect[1] in NiCd batteries, except the failure mode is more permanent than just a temporary loss of usable capacity.
As I understand it, the oil reserves simply weren't built for frequent use. They were built as a backup plan for a global supply chain collapse. Arguably that happened twice in recent history - first with COVID, then with the US deciding to do it itself by getting into a war with the one state where its experts had predicted a war would cause this to happen and that could not readily be defeated because it's literally carved into a vast mountain range and had decades to come up with a plan for defending itself.
Honestly, the war on Iran isn't even in the range of ordinary American politics - even if you come from the most pessimistic "CIA regime change world tour" angle. There's no coherent reason for it to have been executed the way it was that doesn't require assumptions that most people justifiably would dismiss as conspiracy theories (e.g. intentional destroying the global economy for short-term profit through betting & investments).
It's noteworthy that the caverns holding the reserves are on the verge of collapsing. But it's kind of a moot point because there's no way to restore global supply lines in time to refill them when fully drained this time. Tankers are the only viable way to transport large amounts of oil over long distances and it would take months for any shipments out of the region to arrive and there have been practically no shipments for months already.
Unless the US is going to enact rationing, reserves will be gone soon and so will be local supply. Plus if there's any place willing and able to buy oil at a ridiculous markup, that's where the market (and the remaining supply) will go unless the US wants to pivot into outright piracy.
This statement makes me feel worse, not better. Translating from doublespeak: they are acknowledging the caverns are collapsing, and are running it into the ground like every other "critical national security asset".
not just damaged, damaged permanently, like everything else this administration is burning to the ground in our country and just making it someone else's problem to rebuild over the next CENTURY
Copying what someone else said here once...
gestures vaguely to everything
I usually find usage of that word is a good indicator that the argument isn't well thought out enough to be worth reading. It's an "I want easy answers" word.
> On March 19, 2020, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Energy to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to maximum capacity, when oil was priced at $24 per barrel. This directive was given to help support domestic oil producers given the impending economic collapse from COVID-19 and extreme drops in international oil markets. However, funding was blocked by Congress, with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer stating that Democrats had blocked a "bailout for big oil".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_(U...
The only consistent position on US politics that won't get you downvoted on HN is "both parties are dumb."
For all I hate about him and his admin, the trump admin didn't call it a "bailout" once that I can find (even with the help of AI). The only quotes I can find are Chuck Schumer / Democrats calling it that and no direct quote of Trump saying it. In fact this is what I can find:
> On March 13, 2020, Trump described it as purchasing crude oil “at a very good price.” He said filling the reserve would save taxpayers money while also “helping our oil industry.”
> On April 3, a reporter directly asked Trump whether oil executives had requested a bailout. Trump answered: “No, they didn’t ask for a bailout. No.”
> The “bailout for big oil” wording came from Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats, not Trump. Schumer’s official March 25 press release claimed that the final CARES Act had: “Eliminated $3 billion bailout for big oil.”
Would love to be proven wrong here.
> Trump didn't care about the reserve, he cared about the oil industry.
Does that even make a difference?
Either way it's filling the reserve for instances exactly like this, and was blocked by politicians to try and "win" for their party at the expense of every US citizen.
Yes, intent matters. As an example, Trump and Republicans spent all of Biden's term complaining about the direct relief provided to the common people.
Didn't use the word "bailout", of course, but imo the meaning is pretty similar
helping = just that, helping. They might be hurting, but they aren't going to die without the help.
bailout = (as wikipedia defines it) "the provision of financial help to a corporation or country which otherwise would be on the brink of bankruptcy."
In March 2020 the SPR was at 640 Mbarrels (out of 714M). What was blocked was a US$ 3B line item out of a US$ 2T stimulus budget what would have topped things up to the 714M (a purchase of ~77M).
In 2022, ~340Mbarrels (180+30+40+45+20+10+15) were released due to the effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (and we still can crazy-high inflation due to energy (and food) prices):
* https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/mar/why-have-...
To date in 2026, 172M have been released due to the Iran war:
* https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/28/us-strategic-petroleum-reser...
Having 77M more would not have been a bad thing, but I'm (a) curious how much it would it would have made a difference now (6 years later), and/or (b) if there was more earlier on if more would have been released in previous events (because more was available to be release: a 'self-fullfillng prophecy' of sorts).
To me this shows massive withdrawals in 2021-2022 and again in the last two years.
I believe 2021 and some of 2022 was a response to inflation from COVID, and 2022 was obviously also the year Russian oil went off the market. 2026 is the Iran war.
Not to mention that draining them reduces the quality of the remaining oil (much like how you never want to feed an engine from the bottom of a diesel tank).
It's also my understanding that the problem is not just the reserves being drained, let alone drained so much, but also how rapidly they were drained because that again makes things worse.
Total global war (WWII style), total economic collapse (1929 style), and other kinds of not-even-once-in-a-generation multi-year catastrophes.
Voters getting angry about the price of gas is not one of them.
But what the US produces is not necessarily what the US consumes.
Oil markets are global and there is tons of trading going on, so it's not really at all a "fully in house" operation.
Releasing barrels lowers the price but it's obviously only a temporary measure.
I think it's a story as the cease fire with Iran is about to run out
Therefore USA is not oil independent, despite being a net exporter.