U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve Falls to Lowest Level Since 1982

thelastgallon 125 points 149 comments September 29, 2026
oilprice.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (14 comments)

brightball

Chart of strategic reserve levels since 1982, for context https://en.macromicro.me/charts/41674/us-strategic-petroleum...

andriy_koval

looks like gasoline will skyrocket very soon very badly..

bix6

So seriously, what is the administrations intention here? They’ve used all the missiles and drained all the gas. Are they trying to get the U.S. invaded?

dyauspitr

They’ve ruined us.

za3faran

Brought to you by the epestein war

Ifkaluva

And winter is coming

drTobiasFunke

Thos year’s drop is terrible, but we know the reason. Anybody know why the big drop in 2021-22?

davidw

I am frankly a bit bewildered by all this. The US administration lies and lies. The Iranians lie. Doomers keep talking about how gas prices will skyrocket "in two weeks". Occasionally the "everything is fine, nothing to see here" folks wheel out some journalist saying there will be a peace deal any day now. It's pretty difficult to figure out what the reality is besides "not good".

consensus1

The headline is hiding the fact that this was a fairly modest 400K bbl draw for the week.

thelastgallon

Global oil prices haven't skyrocketed so far thanks to China inverting the OPEC strategy of keeping prices up by destroying supply. China stopped/reduced buying, used their large reserves, EVs and now accelerating EV trucks. And also coal to liquids. Eventually, China may have to start buying and thats when the fun begins. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/business/energy-environme... https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Chinas-Renewable-Boom-Masks... China is now the world’s great oil power. Forget OPEC. The Chinese Communist Party calls the shots. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49238158

tmellon2

We can simply get rid of most oil - Just ONE square mile of batteries and a TOTAL of 100 x 100 square miles of Solar can power the entire USA 24/7. It is because of world wide adoption of EVs that the fossil fuel demand has reduced and stabilized gas prices in the US. See : https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/batteries-have-unlo...

yanhangyhy

how about the oil from Venezuela?

rkagerer

How quickly could it realistically be replenished if some kind of detente were reached and supply roughly returned to where it is was? Would replenishment contribute significantly to price pressure?

thelastgallon

When oil prices spike, where does the money go? https://theconversation.com/when-oil-prices-spike-where-does... Its possible Oil price might go higher. Oil Prices Ignore the Warning Signs in Physical Markets: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Oil-Prices-Ignore...

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