Wanting to restore balance and secure itself, the Washington administration turned to refilling the strategic buffer it had lost.
Although stocks increased to 393.6 million barrels by the end of 2024 and 413.5 million barrels by the end of 2025, they could not return to the level they were at the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War. This recovery ended when the global oil flow was disrupted after the war between the USA, Israel and Iran that started on February 28. SPR, which was recorded as 415.2 million barrels at the beginning of the year, rose only to 415.4 million barrels in February.
However, following the supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz caused by the US/Israel-Iran War, strategic stocks began to decline again after Washington approved the release of 172 million barrels from the SPR within the scope of the plan of International Energy Agency (IEA) member countries to release 400 million barrels of oil from emergency reserves in March in order to alleviate the global supply shortage.
According to EIA's weekly data, the decline continued in the summer months. Stocks dropped to 304.8 million barrels at the end of July and to 286.6 million barrels on August 28.
Thus, while the USA entered the Iran war with approximately 415 million barrels of strategic reserves, it lost approximately 30 percent of this buffer in 6 months. SPR shrank by half compared to the period when the Russia-Ukraine War began, reaching its lowest level since 1982.
By being able to quickly deliver additional oil to the market, the SPR offers Washington a powerful tool to limit the impact of supply shocks on prices. But each time the same tool is used, it leaves the United States vulnerable to the next crisis.
According to EIA data, compared to the total oil product consumption of the USA, strategic stocks, which were equivalent to approximately 1 month of consumption at the beginning of 2022, have decreased to approximately 2 weeks today.
While this historic decline in reserves raises the question of how and how quickly Washington will rebuild the strategic buffer it has lost, US President Donald Trump's Venezuela move attracts attention.
Following the new oil agreement reached with Venezuela on August 30, Trump announced that he would use Venezuelan oil to refill the SPR and that the process would begin shortly.
Under the agreement, Washington obtained a 100-year concession for 17 oil fields in Venezuela with proven reserves of more than 65 billion barrels, while also gaining the right to purchase 20 percent of production at cost price.
On the other hand, the US's steps to increase its presence in Venezuela's oil sector were not limited to this. US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, in his statement in Caracas as part of his visit to Venezuela, said that the country's oil production could more than double in the next few years with new investments and agreements.
Additionally, during the visit, international energy companies, including Chevron, Eni and GE Vernova, committed to expand their projects to increase oil production in the country.
These developments indicate that the Washington administration aims to rebuild its strategic stocks, which have fallen to their lowest level since 1982, and to turn Venezuelan oil into a long-term source of supply.
However, it remains unclear whether Venezuela's huge underground reserves can be turned into producible oil in a short time. It is estimated that billions of dollars of investment and infrastructure work will be needed to increase production in the country, whose oil production is approximately 1.2 million barrels per day and has been faced with insufficient investment for many years.
