alt Hacker News> The US government is continuing to release oil from its strategic petroleum reserve, which saw a drawdown of 3.8mn barrels to 307.7mn barrels — the lowest level in more than 40 years. Its operational minimum, below which further withdrawals risk damaging infrastructure and disrupting pipeline operations, is estimated at 180mn to 200mn barrels, according to industry analysts.
So [EDIT: half] a year of reserves left at current rates and levels.
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As the private/working reserves are set to reach operational minimums in a month or less at the current pace, the SPR will have to increase draw rate or there will have to be further demand destruction. If it goes to 7mn a week, below the 9.9mn peak draw recorded, that's 4.5 months. If it has to exceed peak rates as private/working reserves running out bites more than the optimistic numbers I'm using, or if China returns closer to pre-war oil imports, it will run out in 2-3 months. Before it runs out, the maximum draw rate will likely start falling - there are multiple facilities and some are already at or close to operational minimums - which will force demand destruction even before operational minimums.
The operational minimums for commercial crude inventories are estimated at 300-380mn barrels, with current inventories at . Weekly draw rate this week was 7.2mn just for the commercial inventories, and levels were ~400mn barrels. So there's 20-100mn barrels remaining in the commercial inventory. Even moreso than the SPR, this is uneven, and maximum draw rates will decrease as individual storage reaches minimums.
No, less than a year, much less. There needs to be a certain level maintained in order to keep pressure and lot of the bottom stuff is unusable because of contaminants - it's like sludge.