US Strategic Petroleum Reserve - lowest value in 2026

Question

How much will US draw down on its petroleum reserves to ease the price shock from the Iran war?

The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve as  of April 24th is 397.9 million barrels, down from 415 million pre-war.

President Trump authorized the Department of Energy to release 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, beginning next week. This will take approximately 120 days to deliver based on planned discharge rates  (March 11th, https://www.energy.gov/articles/united-states-release-172-million-barrels-oil-strategic-petroleum-reserve)

This market resolves based on the values officially reported by EIA - currently at https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/  under "Petroleum Balance Sheet". Directly at https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/table1.pdf (will update if the source changes). Only values for May 2026 or later count for the question

Some historical trends below: (source: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcsstus1&f=m, note that this is in thousands of barrels)

[image]The lowest value in recent history is  347.1 million barrels from June 2023

Manifold Markets · Answer

Per Manifold Markets prediction market, Below 300 million, followed by Below 250 million and Below 200 million are most likely. See the market for live updates (12 traders, as of Jul 23, 2026).