Well, USA still has half of its strategic oil reserves. Looks like OPEC want USA and EU to stop their price cap games or face reserves depletion in attempts to keep prices low.
The US is just draining itself of a strategic military asset.
Europe though, they need to start building some very deep reserves, because if an export ban happens they're going to be on the receiving end of it.
A better medium/long term strategy seems to reduce oil energy usage or speed up transition on other energy sources and usages. This will also have the strategic advantage of keep on the technological race.
My naïve view would be to priorise the reduce way over transition one because other techs also needs material extracted from earth, refined, transformed, move sub-continent… and that also need a lot of energy. I’m not an expert and would love to be proven wrong, and see a fast enough global transition.
> The crude oil export ban prohibited most crude oil exports from the United States to other countries. It was implemented in 1975 and lifted in December 2015.
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2015/12/18/a... ( https://archive.is/BWfNt )
> On December 18th Congress voted to put an end to the problem by lifting the 40-year-old export ban as part of an omnibus budget bill. Republicans championed the proposal, which is backed by the oil industry. Reluctant Democrats supported it because in exchange they were able to negotiate an additional five years of tax credits for wind and solar power, which they are keen on. The deal showed a spirit of compromise often absent on Capitol Hill.
> The move has three potentially positive outcomes. It will increase the market for the light, sweet crude pumped out of America’s shale deposits, which may eventually give the fracking industry a fillip. It will give refineries outside America access to a greater variety of oil, enabling them to operate more efficiently. And it will make West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the reference price in the United States, a global benchmark for light, high-grade crudes to rival Brent, an international benchmark that is based on a mix of heavier crudes. That would make oil trading more efficient.
> Washington, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Petroleum Reserves announced that contracts have been awarded for the purchase of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to meet its Congressional obligation to sell 26 million barrels in Fiscal Year 2023. The awards follow the Notice of Sale announced on February 13, 2023. These contract awards complete the mandated sale set forth in section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 and section 32204 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act.
In particular, note the mandated sales.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=29692
Several recent acts of Congress have authorized sales from the SPR:
The Bipartisan Budget Act (Section 404), enacted in 2015, includes authorization for funding an SPR modernization program to support improvements deemed necessary to preserve the long-term integrity and utility of SPR's infrastructure by selling up to $2 billion worth of SPR crude oil in fiscal years 2017 through 2020. Although the estimated volumes presented in the chart above are based on an assumed oil price of $50 per barrel, the actual final sales volumes will depend on how SPR decides to allocate the sales volumes across those fiscal years and the actual price of crude oil at the time of the sales. For the Section 404 sales, SPR must get an appropriation from Congress to approve its requested sales revenue target.
Another section of the Bipartisan Budget Act (Section 403) mandates SPR crude oil sales for fiscal years 2018 through 2025 on a volumetric basis, rather than on a dollar basis, as specified in Section 404. The revenues from sales authorized under section 403 will be deposited into the general fund of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
The 21st Century Cures Act, enacted in December 2016, calls for the sale of 25 million barrels of SPR crude oil for fiscal years 2017 through 2019. The first portion of these sales is expected in late spring 2017.
The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, enacted in December 2015, calls for SPR sales totaling 66 million barrels from fiscal years 2023 through 2025.
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If these are military assets, then that congressional mandate in 2015 was ill advised. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-11720/pdf/COMPS-11...
The US was a founding member of the International Energy Program which has the mission described:
https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-security-toolkit
> The establishment of an emergency oil response system is a core commitment that each IEA Member country has taken when signing the IEA’s founding treaty, the Agreement on an International Energy Program (IEP). This includes ensuring oil stock levels equivalent to no less than 90 days of net imports and to be ready to collectively respond to severe supply disruptions affecting the global oil market.
> IEA Member countries have substantial flexibility in how they meet the stockholding obligation, which allows each country to establish an emergency response system most appropriate to their domestic circumstances, taking into account the country’s oil market structure, political institutions, and overall energy system. Oil security legislation, including regulations and response plans, is one of the primary components of an effective emergency response system. The particular nature of the oil security legislation will vary from one country to another depending on country’s policies and choice of stockholding model.
This is for the stability of the economy - not the military.
https://www.iea.org/articles/united-states-legislation-on-oi...
> In the wake of the 1973-74 oil crisis, the United States (US) Congress enacted the Energy Supply and Environmental Coordination Act of 1974 (ESECA) and the more comprehensive Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA) with the specific aims to fulfil the US’s obligations under the International Energy Programme (IEP), to provide for the creation of a Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), to conserve energy supplies, to provide for improved energy efficiency, to provide a means for verification of energy data, and to conserve water by improving water efficiency of certain plumbing products and appliances (EPCA section 2).
> ...
> According to section 3(8)(A-C) of EPCA, a “severe energy supply interruption” exists when there is a national energy supply shortage which the President determines (a) is, or is likely to be, of significant scope and duration, and of an emergency nature, (b) may cause major adverse impact on national safety or the national economy, and (c) results, or is likely to result, from (i) an interruption in the supply of imported petroleum product, (ii) an interruption in the supply of domestic petroleum products, or (iii) sabotage, an act of terrorism, or an act of God.