Trump administration gradually refilling Strategic Petroleum Reserve

The Trump administration is in the midst of “gradually” refilling the country’s state of emergency. Oil reserves After it was partially depleted during the Biden administration.

president Donald Trump The White House has been touting lower energy and oil prices in recent months as Democrats realigned their political messaging after losing the 2024 election and found a winning strategy in hitting the Trump administration over “affordability” and cost-of-living concerns.

Given that the administration is touting lower gas prices as it supports Trump’s economic plans in the face of “affordability” opposition from Democrats, Fox News Digital asked the White House on Wednesday whether the administration was taking steps to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), something Trump has vowed to do since the campaign and during the inauguration.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the United States’ emergency stockpile of oil that was created after the oil crisis of the 1970s and stored along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. The Ministry of Energy supervises the reserve.

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The Trump White House said that the administration is gradually refilling the strategic oil reserve after it was partially depleted during the Biden administration. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

A Trump official explained that the administration is working to refill oil reserves “gradually,” noting significant “damage” to the reserves after the Biden administration released millions of barrels of oil in 2021 and 2022.

“Joe Biden’s disastrous green energy policies have sent gas prices soaring across the country, making the past four years painfully unaffordable for Americans who fill their gas tanks to commute to work, take their kids to school, and travel during the summer and holiday seasons,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told Fox News Digital.

“Desperate to provide the illusion of relief during his 2024 campaign, Joe Biden has irresponsibly depleted our Strategic Petroleum Reserve — shamelessly putting our economic and national security at risk. President Trump’s energy dominance agenda has already depressed gas prices across the country, with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve gradually replenished, and they will continue to decline as American energy is unleashed.”

Biden released 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2021 to lower gas prices and address the country’s supply chain issues, saying the move was necessary after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a “near economic standstill.”

He increased the bet on depleting the strategic oil reserve in March 2022, announcing that his administration would release one million barrels of oil per day from the strategic oil reserve for a period of six months to combat rising gas prices. The announcement came in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with the United States and other allies imposing tough sanctions on oil-rich Russia in response. Biden exported nearly 300 million barrels of oil during his four years.

The United States uses about 20.2 million barrels of crude oil per day, according to the report Energy Information AdministrationThus the Strategic Petroleum Reserve of about 400 million barrels would only cover about 20 days of demand if it were the country’s sole source of crude.

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Biden ranks first among presidents in terms of releasing the most oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, with his administration admitting at the time that it was “unprecedented” but that he needed to lower energy prices. Strategic oil reserve levels fell to a 40-year low of 347 million barrels in July 2023 after drawdowns in 2021 and 2022, compared to a record high of 727 million barrels under the Obama administration in 2009.

“The scale of this leak is unprecedented: never before has the world released oil reserves at this rate of 1 million per day over this period of time,” the Biden administration said in a statement. statement at the timeIt blames the rise in prices on Russia. “This record release will provide a historic amount of supply to serve as a bridge to the end of the year when domestic production picks up.”

Other presidents have released oil from the reserve, including the administration of President George H.W. Bush, which released 17.3 million barrels in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm, and the administration of President George W. Bush ordered the withdrawal of 11 million barrels in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina rocked the Gulf Coast.

In 2021, President Biden announced the release of 50 million barrels of oil from the Department of Energy’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to combat rising energy prices that have reached seven-year highs across the country ahead of the holiday travel season. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The “damage” left behind by Biden in the White House

A Trump administration official told Fox Digital that “the repercussions of this harmful decision” to release nearly 300 million barrels of oil “are still ongoing.”

The official said that the release of oil during the Biden administration generated $280 million CostsIt delayed maintenance of critical infrastructure, and caused “unprecedented” wear and tear on storage and injection facilities.

The strategic reserve currently holds just over 400 million barrels, with a capacity of about 700 million barrels, Fox Digital has learned. Replenishing the reserve could cost as much as $20 billion, according to the administration official, who stressed that “the damage the Biden administration has done to the SPR and US national security cannot be overstated.”

The Strategic Reserve recorded its lowest levels in modern history under the Biden administration, although the reserve contained only a few million barrels of oil in the late 1970s and early 1980s as officials worked to… Fill reserve.

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden’s office for comment on the SPR and Trump administration comments but did not immediately receive a response.

Following Biden’s record emergency withdrawal in 2022, the Biden-Harris administration directed the Department of Energy to begin buying back crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at prices well below the roughly $95 per barrel at which it was sold. In 2022.

Congress needs to appropriate money to replenish reserves. Currently, the Department of Energy has backfill authority and funds granted under the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which allocated $218 million to maintain and repair storage facilities and $171 million to replenish the Strategic Reserve.

Appetite between Republicans The replenishment of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was evident earlier in 2025, when House GOP lawmakers unveiled a budget proposal in May that included more than $1.5 billion to replenish and maintain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Funding was reduced amid negotiations over the draft funding law.

Armed security forces stand near an oil pipeline at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s Brian Mound facility. (Brett Comer/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

The Trump administration told Fox Digital that the Energy Department and Trump are working to gradually replenish the reserve and remain committed to their previous pledges to do so, pending additional funding from Congress.

The Department of Energy began replenishing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in October, Fox Digital has learned, in October with a notice of intent to purchase 1 million barrels of oil, followed by the department awarding contracts to begin replenishing the reserve. The Ministry of Energy expects oil to reach reserves by the end of 2025.

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The administration said it is considering other ways to replenish reserves while it waits for more funding measures from Congress, including exchanging 1 million barrels to Exxon Mobil in July to address a temporary supply outage at its Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery. Exxon will return the oil, with an additional amount to be returned under a negotiated schedule by the third quarter of fiscal year 2026.

Pledge to replenish reserves after Biden

Trump has criticized Biden’s plan and the subsequent release of oil in the transition period between his first and second administration, including in 2021 when he told the New York Post that the reserve should only be tapped during “serious emergencies, like war, and nothing else.”

“Now I understand that Joe Biden will announce an ‘attack’ on the newly filled Strategic Petroleum Reserves so he can get closer to the record high oil prices that have been artificially lowered,” Trump told the outlet at the time. “We were energy independent a year ago, and now we’re at the mercy of OPEC, and gasoline is selling for $7 in parts of California, and it’s going up across the country, and they’re taking oil from our strategic reserves. Is this the way to run the country?”

As the federal election cycle heats up, President Donald Trump has pledged to replenish reserves if re-elected. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)

Under Trump’s first term, the US Department of Energy worked to purchase $3 billion of crude oil under a $2 trillion stimulus package in 2020, but Senate Democrats dropped the funding from the final version of the bill that Trump signed into law.

As the federal election cycle heats up, Trump has pledged to replenish reserves if re-elected.

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Trump said in August 2024 that Biden “is using the strategic reserves allocated to the military and allocated to the war, and one of the very important things is that he is using them to try to keep gasoline prices low,” saying he would “immediately replenish the reserve” if re-elected. “We cannot allow this to happen.”

The price of gas is seen as traffic moves through Annapolis, Maryland on November 23, 2021. (Jim Watson/Getty Images)

As Trump pledged in his January 20 inaugural address: “We will lower prices, fill our strategic reserves back to the top, and export American energy around the world.”

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White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt on Thursday, during a news conference, celebrated the current decline in the country’s gas prices as evidence that the Trump economy is easing the financial anxiety Americans are feeling.

Democrats in the 2025 election cycle this offseason campaigned on an “affordability” platform, claiming the Trump administration is exacerbating cost-of-living problems. The president and his administration responded to Democrats’ new winning campaign strategy, blaming rising costs on Biden administration policies that have had a lasting impact on the economy.

“American families have faced constant pain at the pump, and these costs have caused the prices of everything else to rise as well,” Levitt said Thursday. “In fact, the nation’s average cost of a gallon of regular gas was the most expensive during a presidential term in U.S. history under Biden’s disastrous leadership, even as we recklessly depleted our strategic reserves to try to artificially lower prices. But thanks to President Trump, those days are long gone. And in the coming months, Americans can expect prices to fall even further.”