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Strategic Petroleum Reserve

About the SPR<br>The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the world's largest supply of emergency crude oil was established primarily to reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products and to carry out obligations of the United States under the international energy program. The federally-owned oil stocks are stored in huge underground salt caverns at four sites along the coastline of the Gulf of America. The sheer size of the SPR (authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels) makes it a significant deterrent to oil import cutoffs and a key tool in foreign policy.<br>SPR oil is sold competitively when the President finds, pursuant to the conditions set forth in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), that a sale is required. Historically, the President has authorized emergency releases from the SPR on four occasions.<br>Additionally, the Secretary of Energy may authorize limited releases in the form of exchanges with entities that are not part of the Federal Government. This authority allows the SPR to negotiate exchanges where the SPR ultimately receives more oil than it released; thereby acquiring additional oil. With the exception of the 2000 Heating Oil Exchange, the SPR has entered into negotiated contracts at the request of private companies in order to address short-term, emergency supply disruptions to a refiner's normal operations on several occasions.<br>SPR Distribution Systems<br>The SPR Distribution Systems sites are connected to midstream assets within three distribution systems: Seaway, Texoma, and Capline. The Seaway System includes the Bryan Mound SPR site and connects to refinery hubs in Houston, Texas City, and Freeport. The Texoma System includes the Big Hill and West Hackberry SPR sites. Both Big Hill and West Hackberry have connectivity to the Beaumont-Port Arthur, Lake Charles, and New Orleans area refineries, and limited connectivity to the Houston area refineries. The Capline System includes the Bayou Choctaw SPR site and connects to the Baton Rouge area refineries as well as one New Orleans area refinery.<br>As of March 2025, the four SPR storage sites were connected by SPR owned pipelines and commercially owned pipelines and terminals, to 24 Gulf Coast area refineries and six refineries located in Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky.<br>The SPR also connects to three marine terminals that have a combined contracted marine distribution capacity of 2.220 MMbbl/d, and it owns one marine terminal (leased to ExxonMobil Pipeline Company) with a distribution capacity of 400 Mbbl/d. These marine terminals are: Seaway Terminal (Enterprise Products), Freeport, Texas; Seaway...