America’s oil safety net is getting dangerously thin. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the country’s emergency crude stockpile managed by the Department of Energy, has fallen to 349.2 million barrels as of the week ending June 5, 2026. That’s the lowest level in three years and approaching territory not seen since the Reagan administration in the early 1980s.
To put that number in context: the SPR once held nearly 600 million barrels in the early 1990s. It’s now sitting at roughly 58% of that peak.
What’s draining the reserve
The culprit is the escalating US-Iran conflict, which has triggered a sustained campaign of emergency releases since March 2026. Between 50 and 66 million barrels have been drawn from the reserve over that period, with current weekly depletion rates running at an estimated 7 to 9 million barrels.
At that pace, another week or two would push the stockpile below its previous modern low of 346.7 million barrels, set in July 2023 during the Biden administration’s own round of releases.
