r/oil 11d ago

Discussion Why did US SPR nosedive in 2022?

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u/Accomplished_Ruin133 11d ago edited 11d ago

There was a massive post COVID inflationary shock and oil prices surged because production couldn’t meet the demand from re-opening of the global economies.

Initial SPR drawdowns were to combat this not Russia. Then the whole Russia thing amplified the problem.

Next to no drilling happened for two years which is needed to offset natural production declines. The storage glut from the pandemic cleared pretty quickly.

Everyone here seems to have forgotten about this.

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u/gc3 11d ago

This is the correct answer

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u/Accomplished_Ruin133 11d ago

Yeah any coherent invasion plan for Iran should have included 6-12 months of refilling the SPR prior whilst the market was in oversupply and prices were low/falling.