Aging infrastructure and repeated draws cut Strategic Petroleum Reserve pumping capacity, GAO finds

Equipment failures, aging infrastructure limit pumping capacity

The 60 Gulf Coast salt caverns that make up the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve are deteriorating under the strain of repeated withdrawals, aging infrastructure and a lack of investment, according to experts and government researchers, raising the prospect that the Trump administration or a future one may not be able to rely on the emergency buffer at a time of continued volatility in global oil markets.

The reserve, established in 1975, was designed for up to five full cycles of drawdown and refill. In the past four years alone, the Biden and Trump administrations have together ordered releases totaling 352 million barrels — nearly half the stockpile’s total capacity — to tamp down soaring oil prices. Trump authorized a 172-million-barrel release in March after the onset of the U.S.-Iran war, a conflict that analysts say continues to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of global oil transited before hostilities began.

The reserve’s stocks have fallen to their lowest level since 1983.

According to a Government Accountability Office report published last month, Department of Energy officials told auditors they were “holding the reserve together with ‘Band-Aids,’ and that it is uncertain how long they will hold.” The report documented 16 major equipment failures since 2013, including of raw water and brine disposal piping, and noted that a well ruptured at a Texas site in May 2024, causing the loss of as much as 400,000 barrels of crude.

“Hopefully the Iran war and the disruption it caused will serve as a wake-up call to reverse … the trend of neglect, both in terms of operational capabilities, but also just the volume,” said Robert McNally, president of consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group.

The reserve has experienced degradation at multiple sites, including well deformation and hydraulic failures, that limits how much crude can flow in and out of the caverns. As of December, the Energy Department estimated that 2.7 million barrels a day could be withdrawn, out of the 4.4 million barrels a day the system was designed to handle. Injection capacity had fallen to about 440,000 barrels a day, compared with a design capacity of 785,000 barrels a day. Experts said that means not all of the oil in the reserve may be accessible when needed, and that replenishing stocks will be a slower process than intended.

“It’s a strategically important national asset, and I think that its management and supervision needs to be elevated to reflect that,” said Clayton Seigle, a nonresident scholar in energy security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Energy Department has completed some major maintenance through a $1.4 billion project, but the effort has been plagued by delays and cost overruns, according to the report. As of December, the DOE estimated the reserve’s major maintenance backlog would cost about $230 million to address, though the GAO noted that figure did not reflect the full scope of needs. An Energy Department spokeswoman said the GOP-led Congress has allocated $218 million for maintenance and repairs to the reserve.

The spokeswoman said the administration is managing the reserve responsibly and “helping stabilize oil markets, protect Americans from supply disruptions, and strengthen energy security at home and abroad.” She said the latest 172-million-barrel release was structured as an exchange that requires the oil to be returned to the reserve along with an additional 35 million barrels at no cost to taxpayers.

The current release, coordinated with other International Energy Agency member nations, helped cap a rise in U.S. crude futures to $112.95 a barrel, according to the Wall Street Journal. Prices now hover near $74 a barrel. A DOE official said the administration is releasing crude at a lower rate than during Biden’s drawdown to preserve the lifespan of the sites.

Analysts say the U.S. is less dependent on the stockpiles than in earlier decades due to the shale boom, which has made the country the world’s largest crude producer. American drillers are on track to produce about 14 million barrels a day this year, compared with about 5 million barrels in 2008. But the Iran war has shown that the strategic reserve remains a key tool for administrations seeking to calm markets — a tool whose reliability is now in question.

McNally said the conflict and the disruption it caused should serve as a wake-up call to reverse the trend of neglect. Steven Sobolik, a retired technical staff member at Sandia National Laboratories, which serves as the geotechnical adviser for the reserve, said the facilities are still in good operational status but are “in need of significant planning and rehabilitation to continue in that manner for more than just a few years.”