Biden SPR Refilling Strategy: Facts About Oil Replacement | Shale Magazine

• Biden Administration’s refilling strategy for the SPR explained and fact-checked.
• Conflicting statements from the Department of Energy on replenishing the SPR.
• Why the SPR isn’t being fully refilled despite initial government promises.

I recently found myself embroiled in some social media drama related to a previous article I wrote. The article was “The Biden Administration Is Not Refilling The Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” published in May.

The article detailed that the Biden Administration wouldn’t replace more than a fraction of the oil removed from the SPR since he took office, and therefore previous claims that they would refill the reserve were no longer valid.

But the complaint wasn’t about the article itself. It was about the headline, which a prominent poster called a “despicable lie.” This was repeated across several social media platforms, and I found myself the target of quite a bit of vitriol as a result.

The poster indicated he had read the article, and he was aware that I said some of the oil that was removed was being put back. His issue was with the phrase “not refilling”, which he said implies that nothing is being put back.

Honestly, I didn’t see the headline as misleading, as I had in mind the standard definition of refill. Many people have a habit of reading a headline and coming to conclusions without reading the article, and that was the case with nearly all of the comments.

I consulted several dictionaries, and they all said “refill” means either to “fill again” or to “fill up again.” That is consistent with my use of the phrase “not refilling.” As I show below, the SPR is certainly not being filled up again, hence in my view “not refilling” is an accurate description of the situation.

Below I will detail exactly what is happening with the SPR, but at most the disagreement over the headline is a semantics issue. Some commenters were fine with the headline, others thought it was somewhat confusing, some thought it was deliberately misleading, and some felt like I should have said “not completely refilling.”

I always view qualifiers like “completely” when referring to something being empty or full as redundant, but I accept that some felt misled by the headline. In any case, whether the headline was confusing, it certainly wasn’t a “despicable lie.”

What’s Happening with the SPR?

When Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the SPR contained 638 million barrels of oil. By mid-2023, that level had dropped to 347 million barrels, a decline of 291 million barrels, or 45.6%. This was the largest SPR decline under any president in history. Here is a graphical representation of what has happened with SPR levels in recent years.

There are multiple reasons for the decline. Several pieces of legislation, including the 2015 Bipartisan Budget Act, the 2018 Bipartisan Budget Act, and the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015, mandated the sale of oil from the SPR to raise revenue for government programs and infrastructure projects.

These measures required selling oil from the SPR in subsequent years as part of balancing the budget and generating funding for various initiatives. As a result, SPR levels declined under Trump from 695 million barrels to 638 million barrels (-8.2%).

Important to note here that Trump claimed he inherited a depleted SPR and refilled it. I have fact-checked him on that claim. It’s also noteworthy that Trump’s 2018 budget proposal called for selling an additional 270 million barrels of oil from the SPR. On the other hand, it’s also true that Trump called for putting barrels back in during the price crash in 2020, but Congress failed to act on those wishes.

The mandated sales continued under Biden. In Biden’s first year, the level fell from 638 million barrels to 591 million barrels (-7.4%).

Then things got interesting, and confusing. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. cut off imports of Russian oil and finished products. President Biden announced a 180-million-barrel withdrawal from the SPR to stabilize oil prices.

Conflicting DOE Statements

The Department of Energy (DOE) initially stated that the objective was to replenish the SPR by the end of 2024. But, in subsequent months, the DOE made some conflicting statements about replacing the oil that was removed.

In July 2023, in an interview with CNN, “Energy Secretary vows to refill emergency oil stockpile” DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm said, “The first term’s over in a year and a half. So, I’m not sure it’ll be fully replenished. But certainly, the plan is this term and the next term to be able to do that.”

That led many media outlets to claim that what was taken out would be eventually put back. But a DOE spokesperson later walked that statement back:

“An Energy Department spokesperson clarified to CNN that the secretary did not mean the goal is to completely refill the reserve back to pre-Biden levels. Instead, the aim is to recover the 180 million barrels of emergency sales – through a mix of cancelled future sales and new purchases, the spokesperson said.”

This is important because they are explicitly saying they are not going to put back the 180 million barrels that were removed. In other words, although they are going to buy some oil, and cancel some future sales, but there is no intent to refill the SPR. Hence, if they say they aren’t going to replace what was removed, the statement that they are “not refilling” is accurate, even though they are putting some of it back.

Then, in July 2024, Granholm made another statement that was widely misreported:

“As promised, we have secured the 180 million barrels back to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve released in response to Putin’s war in Ukraine – and we accomplished this while getting a good deal for taxpayers and maintaining the readiness of the world’s largest Strategic Petroleum Reserve.”

This led to some outlets claiming the SPR had been refilled, with one stating that it had been “refilled to pre-2022 levels.” Both statements are false. Here I think a graphical representation can help understand what is happening.

An Enlightening Contribution

During the discussion on social media, IT professional Matt Buford (@mattbuford on X), pulled data from multiple sources to create the following graphic. He used data primarily from the DOE to visualize the SPR levels over time.

I thought it was the most significant contribution to the discussion, and he gave me permission to share it here.

SPR Deviations and Projections. Graphic by Matt Buford

This shows that the SPR was drawn down at an accelerated rate starting in 2022 (in response to Russia’s invasion). From the low point in 2023, the Biden Administration began to purchase some barrels back.

But the long-term projection is a return to the pre-Biden Energy Information Administration (EIA) declining SPR forecast line — not to replace the 180 million barrels that were removed over the Russian invasion. This will be achieved primarily through the cancellation of future sales, with a smaller contribution of putting some barrels back into the SPR.

The person who called the headline a lie made the comment, “The implied intent was to refill by adding oil back and canceling sales mandated by Congress.” As you can see, that’s not true. Canceling sales doesn’t add barrels back, it just ensures that barrels that have already been taken out won’t create additional deficits as a result of future sales.

Back to the Question

So, back to the question, is the Biden Administration refilling the SPR? If you believe that putting back a fraction of what was removed — specifically the 180 million barrels over Ukraine — is refilling, then yes.

But do a little test. The next time your spouse asks you to fill their empty tank, take the car to the gas station, call them and tell them you are refilling it, and then come back with a quarter tank. Explain that you put some back, therefore you were refilling it. I doubt they will agree, and I hope that reasonable people can see that this is a valid perspective.

I would still maintain that by the definition of refilling, then no, they aren’t refilling it. Strictly meaning, that they will not replace the 180 million barrels they removed over Ukraine. But, yes, they are putting back some of what was removed.

Some suggested my issue was the slow speed at which the oil is being replaced. That’s not it. It comes down to intent, and in this case the administration has explicitly stated they will not replace all of the 180 million barrels — after they initially said they would.

I can appreciate that people who only read headlines may have come away with a wrong impression. It is never my intent to mislead. The intent was to correct a wide misconception in the media that the barrels that were removed from the SPR will be fully replaced — or have already been replaced to pre-2022 levels.

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