Terry Payne submits:
Biden Is Destroying Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve
By William Duncan <https://www.americanthinker.c
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is a national treasure. Frighteningly,
Biden is rapidly despoiling this treasure.
The Reserve consists of four sites (Bryan Mound, Big Hill, Bayou Choctaw,
and West Hackberry) with a combined storage capacity of 714 million barrels
of crude oil. It is the largest strategic oil reserve in the world.
The OPEC oil embargo of 1973 and the resultant oil crisis contributed to
western governments' recognition of how vulnerable their countries were to
disruptions in Middle East oil. As a result, SPR was authorized by the
Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (P.L. 94-163), signed into law by
President Gerald Ford <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
December 22, 1975. Construction on the Reserve began in 1977 and was
completed in the early 1990s.
The SPR anchors the world's collective energy security system. By ensuring
that the SPR remains a reliable asset within the IEA collective action
framework, the United States leads by example, encouraging other countries
to maintain their own reserves of crude oil and petroleum products, and to
deploy those reserves in a collective manner. This leverages the
effectiveness of the United States strategic reserves and benefits the
United States to a greater degree than would be possible with only the SPR.1
SPR crude oil is stored in underground caverns leached in salt domes at the
four sites. There are approximately 60 caverns ranging in size from 6 to 37
million barrels in capacity. A typical cavern holds 10 million barrels and
is cylindrical in shape with a diameter of 200 feet and a height of 2,500
feet.2
Each SPR cavern contains either sweet or sour crude; there is no comingling
of the two streams within individual storage caverns.3 Sweet crude has a
maximum of 0.5% sulfur content. Sour crude has a sulfur content in excess of
0.5%. On July 21, 1977, the first shipment of approximately 412,000 bbl. of
Saudi Arabian light crude was delivered to the SPR.4 The Reserve completed
filling 32 years later on December 27, 2009.5
The SPR was designed for five complete drawdown/refill cycles whereby the
caverns are drained and then refilled. Each drawdown/refill cycle expands
the storage cavern size because the oil is forced out by injecting fresh
water into the cavern causing the oil to flow upwards. The surrounding salt
dissolves in the fresh water, expanding the cavern's size. Without getting
too technical, the SPR isn't draining individual caverns as it sells oil,
but instead is only reducing the inventory across many caverns.
Much has been written about the Biden administration's recent drawdown (180
million barrels) from the SPR, which has reduced the SPR inventory (405
million BBL as of 10/14/22)6 to its lowest point since 1984. The Biden
Administration announced the final 15 million BBL of the 180 million BBL
release on October 18.7 When this final 15 million BBL is sold, the SPR
inventory will be below 400 million BBL or just over one-half of its storage
capacity of 714 million barrels. Based on 2021 imports of 6.1 million
barrels per day (BPD), this total represents approximately two months'
imports.8
The Reserve's depletion is a major concern because there is no assurance
that it will be refilled despite the Biden administration's pledge to refill
it when crude prices drop to or below the $67-72 per barrel price range.9
Biden is prepared to authorize significant additional sales in the coming
months if conditions require.10 With the projections for a bad winter in the
northeast, can the Biden administration resist the urge to sell even more
SPR oil?
Image: A pumpjack in Texas
<https://commons.wikimedia.org
BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/l
Even if the Administration does commence refill, the process will take
years. The highest fill rate the SPR has achieved is 292,000 barrels per day
(BPD) in 1981.11 At that rate (assuming it can be achieved) it will take
over three years to refill the Reserve to capacity-and that assumes perfect
execution and no supply or logistical glitches. Moreover, it is questionable
if that rate can be achieved because, in the early years, the SPR was
filling empty storage caverns. Now, they'll be topping off caverns, a
process that is logistically more difficult.
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