America’s emergency oil reserve is dropping toward levels not seen since the 1980s, as the United States rapidly drains its supplies to stabilize global energy markets rattled by the war with Iran.

According to the latest report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the U.S. has 365.1 million barrels of oil sitting in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in the week ending May 22, compared to 374.2 million a week prior and down by over 50 million barrels since the conflict began on February 28.

This drawdown has already brought the SPR to its lowest level since April 2024. And at the current pace, GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan predicts that the reserve is days away from reaching levels last touched in August 1983—when it was still in the initial “fill-up” stage.

This is despite PresidentDonald Trumphaving criticized his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, in the past for “recklessly” draining the SPR during the 2022 energy crisis, and pledging during his 2025 inauguration to bring America’s emergency reserves “right to the top.”

Newsweekhas contacted the Department of Energy via email for comment.

Authorized in 1975 by President Gerald Ford, the SPR was created in response to the economic fallout from the 1973 Oil Crisis, which caused shortages, price increases and broad unease about the country’s vulnerability to global energy shocks.

Located across a series of underground facilities along the Gulf Coasts of Texas and Louisiana, the SPR has been dubbed an “emergency response tool” by theDepartment of Energy, and supplies have in the past been used to increase the amount of available crude on the market and put downward pressure on prices during “significant disruptions in oil supplies that threaten the U.S. economy.”

Releases occurred during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, after Hurricane Katrina damaged response facilities in the Gulf in 2005, following supply disruptions caused by the Libyan civil war, and to address the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The latter took place under Biden and, at around 180 million barrels, is still the largest single drawdown in the reserve’s 50-year history. This drew opposition from Republican lawmakers and Trump, who called it a “futile attempt to reduce oil and gasoline prices” and continued to criticize Biden for years for depleting U.S. emergency stocks.

“The strategic national reserves, which I filled up, have been virtually drained in order to keep gasoline prices lower, just prior to the election,” Trump said when launching his 2024 presidential campaign in late 2022.

Source: Drudge Report