What happened

US Department of Energy data showed crude stocks in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell by 6.1 million barrels during the week to 298.7 million barrels, taking the reserve below 300 million barrels for the first time since 1983. The four-site Gulf Coast system has about 714 million barrels of authorised storage capacity and held about 415 million barrels when the Iran war began. The draw formed part of a planned 172-million-barrel US release during 2026 after disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz; CNBC reported that the reserve would fall to roughly 243 million barrels if the release were completed. A May 2026 Government Accountability Office report found that more than a quarter of the reserve's authorised capacity was unavailable at the end of 2025 because of construction work and cavern outages, while Rapidan Energy Group estimated for CNBC that at least 103 million barrels of the inventory then held could not be accessed immediately. The Energy Department described roughly 70 million barrels as the safe operational minimum, but aging infrastructure and ongoing construction can constrain practical withdrawal rates before that floor is reached. This is a national supply-security milestone and infrastructure-availability incident, not a physical accident, attack or claim that Bryan Mound alone holds the reported total; the marker is anchored at Bryan Mound as the largest of the four SPR storage sites.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.