Drawdown of the Reserve
The Debate Over When and How to Use the SPR
The resources of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) are of little value unless the Department of Energy (DOE) can remove, transport, and sell the oil expeditiously and in significant volume during a supply emergency. SPR drawdown and distribution capability was designed to be 4.3 million barrels per day (mbd), sustainable for 90 days. Fears were expressed periodically during the 1980s over whether the facilities for withdrawing oil from the Reserve were in proper readiness; the absence of problems during the first real drawdown in early 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, appears to have allayed much of that concern. However,…
