The US government slowed the withdrawal of oil from its emergency stockpile to spread out current sales, moving the completion date of the latest drawdown into October. These releases are part of a 400M barrel joint International Energy Agency global effort, for which the US committed to selling 172M barrels. Once these sales finish, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will sit approximately 9M barrels below the Congressional mandate of 252.4M barrels.

Current reserve levels are at lows not seen since 1982, with the stockpile created in 1975. Analysts at Stifel have identified the depleted reserve as being in urgent need of rebuilding to restore energy security.