Strategic Petroleum Reserves
The cushion against a closure.
Strategic Petroleum Reserves are the principal national hedge against a sustained Hormuz disruption. The arithmetic is unforgiving: Hormuz carries roughly 14.7 mbpd of crude and condensate, about 20.9 mbpd counting refined product; global SPR release capacity is about 5–7 mbpd; coordinated release covers 25–35% of that flow. Reserves cushion a crisis, they do not replace the strait.
United States · live
US SPR.
The US SPR sits in salt caverns at four sites along the Gulf Coast. It is among the largest national stockpiles, though China now holds more by volume, and it is the only one that publishes weekly to a machine-readable feed. Updated each Wednesday by the EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report.
Current level
283 mbbl
as of 2 Oct 2026
4-week change
-2.4 mbbl
vs four weeks prior
Post-1990s peak
727 mbbl
reached in 2010
Statutory minimum
252.4 mbbl
legal floor for limited drawdowns under section 161(h); it does not bind a full emergency drawdown or sales ordered by Congress
Cushing, OK · live
Cushing stocks.
Cushing, Oklahoma is the WTI delivery hub. Inventory swings here are the cleanest read on whether North-American crude is bottlenecking, decoupled from the Gulf-Coast picture tracked by the SPR. Pairs with the Brent–WTI spread to show whether disruption is global or American-specific.
Current level
25 mbbl
as of 2 Oct 2026
4-week change
+2.9 mbbl
vs four weeks prior
52-week change
+2.0 mbbl
year-on-year
Operational range
20–55 mbbl
typical Cushing band
Other major holders · curated
Global stockpile picture.
Non-US figures are editorial best-estimates; most countries do not publish stockpile data weekly. China's reserves in particular are estimated by satellite imagery of storage terminals and customs flow analysis.
China
800 mbbl
90dest. days of net-import cover
Not officially published. Kpler/Vortexa put state-linked stocks at 735-800 mbbl (late 2025); the EIA’s broader total-inventory estimate, counting commercial stocks the state can direct, is ~1.4 billion.
Japan
500 mbbl
240dest. days of net-import cover
Combined government and commercial stockpile; the highest reserve ratio in the OECD.
South Korea
97 mbbl
200dgovt + private stocks
97 mbbl is the government (KNOC) stockpile only, and predates the March 2026 release of 22.46 mbbl. About 200 days counts government and private stocks combined (ministry figure).
European Union
1200 mbbl
90dest. days of net-import cover
IEA 90-day stockpile obligation across member states; combined holdings are the largest in the world.
India
39 mbbl
74dincl. oil-company stocks
Vishakhapatnam, Mangalore, Padur. 39 mbbl is strategic-reserve capacity, about 9.5 days of cover; 74 days counts oil-company stocks as well (Indian government replies to Parliament). Expansion under way at Padur and Chandikhol.
Combined global reserves
2919 mbbl
approximate
IEA release capacity
5–7 mbpd
combined sustained drawdown rate
Hormuz normal flow
14.7 mbpd
crude and condensate, EIA 1H25
The drawdown math
Coverage is partial. Always.
At maximum sustained drawdown, IEA-coordinated reserves cover roughly 25–35% of a Hormuz closure. The remaining gap closes through bypass-pipeline utilisation, demand destruction, and accelerated production by non-Gulf suppliers.
What limits reserves isn't how many days the stock would last: at a combined 5–7 mbpd maximum sustained drawdown, the stock itself would outlast almost any closure. The limit is the release rate. It can replace only 25–35% of a full Hormuz outage of about 21 mbpd (crude, condensate, and products), however long the closure runs, so the rest still falls to demand-side adjustment: higher prices, lower consumption, and a shift toward whatever substitutes are available within each economy's short-run flexibility.
IEA coordinated releases
What it has cushioned before.
1991
Operation Desert Storm: first IEA coordinated release.
17 mbbl over 30 days
2005
Hurricane Katrina: Gulf Coast production and refining outage.
60 mbbl over 30 days
2011
Libyan civil war: sustained light-sweet supply disruption.
60 mbbl over 30 days
2022
Russian invasion of Ukraine: the largest coordinated release in IEA history to that point.
180 mbbl over 6 months (US-led, 240 mbbl with IEA partners)