Latest level: 2026-10-16, from EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report (series WCRSTUS2).
United States: government stockholding under the IEA system, administered by US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Petroleum Reserves, which owns and operates four salt cavern storage sites in Texas and Louisiana.
System
IEA
Holding model
government
Stockholding body
US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Petroleum Reserves, which owns and operates four salt cavern storage sites in Texas and Louisiana
Obligation
IEA: 90 days of net imports, met in past years by the Strategic Petroleum Reserve plus industry stocks (DOE SPR Quick Facts)
Reporting
weekly
Latest level
282.7 million barrels
Level date
2026-10-16
Crude
282.7
The SPR holds crude oil only. Authorized storage capacity is 714 million barrels and maximum nominal drawdown is 4.4 million barrels per day (DOE). The October 2026 level was the lowest since October 1982 on secondary trackers citing EIA.
Last recorded action
2026-10-10: exchange of 4.0 million barrels. DOE authorized an emergency exchange of up to 4 million barrels of crude, up to 2 million barrels each for ExxonMobil and BP America, for a Gulf weather disruption, with return plus premium in 2027. This followed the much larger March 2026 commitment of 172 million barrels as the US contribution to the IEA collective action, delivered mainly as exchanges. (source)
Confidence note: System, agency, capacity and actions verified from DOE pages. The latest level is the EIA weekly figure for the week ending 16 October 2026 as reported by trackers citing EIA; direct EIA and FRED retrieval of series WCRSTUS2 was blocked during this build, so the weekly series file could not be produced and the figure could not be re-read from the primary table in session.