Trump vowed to “bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again right to the top and export American energy all over the world” during his inaugural address at the Capitol Monday.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has a maximum capacity of about 700 million barrels, currently stands at at 394.4 million barrels following a record selloff during Biden’s administration. The drawdowns under Biden included selling 180 million barrels into the global market in an attempt to bring down gasoline prices following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Biden had begun slowly refilling the emergency cache, which was created in the aftermath of Arab oil embargo in the 1970s, but ran out of funding to buy more crude after purchasing about 60 million barrels. It would take an act of Congress to appropriate more money for the Energy Department’s petroleum account.
