Former President Donald Trump accused President Biden Thursday of draining America’s strategic petroleum reserve, claiming he built it up to “100% full” despite seeing a reduction in the reserve under his administration as well.
“So after 50 years of being virtually empty, I built up our oil reserves during my administration, and low energy prices, to 100% full,” Trump said in a statement released by his Save America PAC.
“It’s called the Strategic National Reserves, and it hasn’t been full for many decades. In fact, it’s been mostly empty. It’s supposed to only be used for large-scale emergency or conflict,” Trump continued.
“Now I see where Biden has just announced he’s going to take what we so carefully and magically built, and [sic] what will be a futile attempt to reduce oil and gasoline prices. They will soon bring it down to empty again. It just never ends!”
The largest amount of reserve supply ever recorded is more than 726.6 million barrels in early 2009.
Tannen Maury/EPA
When Trump took office in January 2017, there were approximately 695 million barrels of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That amount shrank to around 664.6 million in January 2018, approximately 649 million at the same point in 2019 and just under 635 million in January 2020.
During 2020, the amount in the reserve climbed as high as 656 million barrels at its peak, but dropped back down to 638 million by January 2021.
The largest amount of reserve supply ever recorded is more than 726.6 million barrels in early 2009. As the reserve has a reported storage capacity of 714 million barrels, the closest the Trump administration got to building up the reserve to “100%” was the week he took office.
Gas prices remain high, with the nationwide average price per gallon sitting at $4.23 as of Thursday.
Etienne Laurent/EPA
Still, the Biden administration has tapped the reserve multiple times since taking office, massively dropping the supply. As of March 25, 568,322 million barrels were reported, with no increases in supply under the current administration.
The Biden administration announced the release of 50 million barrels from the reserve in November, followed by another 30 million barrels at the beginning of this month in coordination with the release of another 30 million barrels by 30 countries around the world.
SEE ALSO
Biden expected to announce plan to tap oil reserves amid soaring prices
The president will announce another tapping of the reserves on Thursday, ordering the daily release of 1 million barrels from the reserve on average for the next six months. The announcement comes one day after crude oil traded at almost $105 per barrel — up from $60 at this time last year.
The White House claimed the Department of Energy will use revenue from the upcoming release to help restock the SPR.
The release comes as gas prices remain stubbornly high, with the nationwide average price of a gallon of gas sitting at $4.23 as of Thursday, according to AAA. However, there’s little indication the release would bring down gas prices an appreciable amount, since Americans already consume 20 million barrels of oil per day.
