While it took the Biden administration the better part of six months to drain the US oil supply down to a precarious 20-days of emergency reserves, it will take decades to refill - if that happens at all, Bloomberg reports.
Stroll through the West Hackberry oil facility on the US Gulf Coast and there's not much to see: some pipelines and other industrial equipment.
Thanks to the Biden administration, these reserve sites are sitting half empty.
Oil prices are now much higher than when most of the inventory was originally bought - the average price paid for oil in the reserve was $29.70 per barrel, which compares with the current benchmark cost for US crude futures at about $75. And there's the balance between needing to buy and not purchasing too much at once, lest the oil market gets spooked and prices jump higher.
The depleted SPR also means that the US could be vulnerable to oil price shocks.
The Biden administration's decision to release oil from the SPR has sparked outrage from Republicans - who have accused the admin of manipulating gas prices before the medterm elections last year in November, and have accused them of having no credible plan to refill the reserve.
Congress's decision to strip $12.5 billion earmarked for reserve oil purchases further complicates the situation - as the DOE is now left with a mere $4.3 billion to acquire oil, an insufficient amount to fully restore the SPR. Aging infrastructure poses additional challenges.
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