US Lost Access to Quarter of Oil Reserve Over Equipment Failure — Documents
US Strategic Petroleum Reserve storage tanks at the Sunoco Terminal near Nederland, Texas
A quarter of the oil stored in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has become inaccessible because of aging infrastructure, caused by large-scale oil withdrawals during the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, an analysis of data from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) by Sputnik shows. According to the documents reviewed by Sputnik, more than 25% of the reserve’s oil cannot currently be brought to the surface due to equipment failures and deformation of underground storage caverns. In addition, ongoing equipment failures and maintenance work have reduced the reserve’s actual oil withdrawal and injection capacity to 61% and 56% of their designed capacities, respectively. The United States now requires approximately $230 million to repair the damaged infrastructure. According to the documents, the critical deterioration of the SPR infrastructure resulted from the largest emergency oil release in US history, carried out in 2022 in response to the conflict in Ukraine. During that operation, the reserve was reduced by 31% (180 million barrels) over a short period. Emergency repairs to damaged equipment also delayed a broader modernization program for the reserve’s infrastructure. The situation reportedly worsened in March 2026, when Washington authorized another emergency release of 172 million barrels of oil to stabilize prices amid the conflict with Iran. As of the week ending June 26, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve had fallen to 325.655 million barrels, its lowest level since May 1983. If the planned releases are carried out in full, the reserve could decline to below 250 million barrels, marking the lowest level since records began in August 1982.
