During the 2024 presidential campaign and early in his second term, President Trump repeatedly pledged to “immediately refill” the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to its maximum capacity, emphasizing its role in ensuring energy security and stabilizing oil markets during global supply disruptions.
The Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) sends a much different message, providing only $171 million for petroleum acquisition and $218 million for maintenance of SPR facilities through 2029. This is an 87% reduction in the acquisition funding from the House version that proposed $1.3 billion for crude oil purchases.
The Administration has offered no comment on the BBB’s surprise SPR language. Meanwhile, the SPR will likely remain at or near the current level, which is 324 million bbls below the 2010 high and only 56 million bbls above the 2023 low. (See the above chart.)
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 