30-03-04

The US government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve:
-- Created in salt domes beneath the Texas-Louisiana coastline after the 1973 Arab oil embargo and other oil shocks to assure domestic supplies if imports are interrupted.
-- Capacity is 700 mm barrels; currently contains 651 mm barrels, equivalent to 65 days of oil imports.
-- Maximum drawdown of 4.3 mm bpd, enough to replace 40 % of oil imports for 151 days if needed.
-- Bush administration goal is to fill reserve to full capacity. Energy Department plans to pump in an average of 202,000 bpd in April and 116,000 bpd over next seven months.

-- Suppliers are providing the oil in lieu of paying cash royalties for oil pumped from federal land.
-- President H.W. Bush ordered a drawdown amid concern over oil supplies during the Persian Gulf War. A total of 21 mm barrels were released in 1990 and 1991.
-- President Clinton ordered 30 mm barrels released in September-October, 2000 amid concern over low heating oil supplies.

--SPR was prepared for a drawdown during the Iraqi invasion a year ago, but was not needed. Other world producers replaced lost Iraqi oil and Mideast fields escaped damage.
-- SPR oil has been at the centre of frequent disputes over high energy prices. Then-candidate George W. Bush sharply criticized Clinton's use of SPR in 2000, arguing it was to influence prices not supplies. Democrats in 2000 urged use of SPR oil to temper high energy prices, but Bush refused.