March 11, 2026
President Trump just announced starting next week — the United States is going to release 172 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve over the next four months. This is almost the exact same amount of oil that President Biden released when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
But what is this going to mean for you and your gas prices? And do we have enough oil in the SPR to cover that?
First – according to the US Energy department – as of today the strategic petroleum reserve’s crude oil inventory is sitting at about 415 million barrels. According to the Energy department that is the equivalent to about four months of crude oil net imports. The SPR has the capacity to hold 714 million barrels. That means – as of today – the strategic petroleum reserve is only 58% full. Now – you may remember when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 President Biden released 180 million barrels of oil from the SPR over six months. At the time that was the largest SPR release in US history. Before he left office Biden added about 60 million barrels back into the SPR. But on the campaign trail then-candidate Trump railed against Biden for that SPR draw down and promised when he came back into office in January 2025 to drill baby drill and fill the reserves back up. Well – as I’ve reported the price of oil did actually come down in 2025 – but the SPR has not been filled back up to 100 or even 75%. – but that may not entirely be Trump’s fault just like it may not entirely be Biden’s fault. More on that in a second.
President Trump said this release of 172 million barrels from the u-s reserves will be part of the 400 million barrel release that was announced today by the International Energy Agency. Remember I said oil is a global commodity – yeah – that’s why this global announcement is important. So the US along with the other 31 member nations of the IEA like Japan, Germany, the US and France are all participating. And putting 400 million barrels – including the u-s’s 172 million – will help bring gas prices down — but by how much?
Well I have some numbers based on what happened when Biden released those 180 million barrels in 2022. Spoiler alert — it didn’t really bring down gas prices as much as you would think and it certainly wasn’t a quick fix. According to an analysis from President Biden’s own Treasury department it took four months of that six month SPR release for gas prices to drop by between 13-cents to 31 cents. But when Biden’s Treasury department calculated in the IEA’s oil release in 2022 over those same four months –gas prices dropped by between 17 and 42 cents. But again –that took four months. Not 1 day.
Now – I mentioned trump and even Biden aren’t entirely to blame for not refilling the SPR all the way back up. That’s because congress has to allocate the money for the president to direct the oil to be purchased. When it came to Biden – congress actually rescinded some of the money that they already allocated for oil purchases and in trump’s case – he asked congress to give him $1.3 billion in the big beautiful bill to fill the SPR…but instead – congress only gave him a fraction of that just $171 million. So it is being refilled – but at a very slow pace.
The other thing you need to know –according to the Energy department the SPR can only safely release 4.4 million barrels a day.
Read the announcement from Trump’s US Energy Dept. here.
Read the announcement from the International Energy Agency here.
Look at the SPR levels here.
Read the 2022 Treasury Report on results of SPR release here.
Read Biden’s announcement about 60 million barrel purchase here.
