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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> The US government is continuing to release oil from its strategic petroleum reserve, which saw a drawdown of 3.8mn barrels to 307.7mn barrels — the lowest level in more than 40 years. Its operational minimum, below which further withdrawals risk damaging infrastructure and disrupting pipeline operations, is estimated at 180mn to 200mn barrels, according to industry analysts.

So [EDIT: half] a year of reserves left at current rates and levels.

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No, less than a year, much less. There needs to be a certain level maintained in order to keep pressure and lot of the bottom stuff is unusable because of contaminants - it's like sludge.

> There needs to be a certain level maintained

Isn't that the "180mn to 200mn barrels"?

~300 - 200 = 100mn useful barrels.

If we're drawing it down by about 4 a week, that's about 25 weeks.

If it's really closer to the 180 needed to prevent collapse and hit unusable supply then it's 120mn barrels and we're at 30 weeks.

A year is 52 weeks.

That also is based on a massive assumption of constant draw rate. Something is probably going to change, who knows when. Maybe the war ends and things actually reopen soon. Maybe Iran manages to blow up Saudi pipelines avoiding the straight. Maybe China's SPR runs out (nobody knows what it's at) and international demand skyrockets again. Other reserves are likely to be eliminated soon as well, putting more international pressure.

I wouldn't have a clue what the rate will be in a month or two, but I can't imagine it'll be anywhere near the same as the past few weeks.

Oh yeah, I fucked up my math. Thanks.

Regardless of usage patterns, oil simply can't go above a certain price or a chunk of the northeast dies in winter.

This war is the largest self inflicted wound to the US in history. And Trump is pretending like all is fine because he keeps, erroneously, believing the oil problem he caused will resolve itself.

Of course the next (Dem) president will be blamed for low oil reserves and high prices to refill it.

From what I understand, below 300 you start having issues, there's also a minimum national security level at 250 (not legally binding).

> below 300 you start having issues

Source?

I'll try to find it again, it was in a Bloomberg podcast about energy.

This is unfamiliar territory, and honestly it's still an assumption. No one is sure at what level the system needs to remain stable.

As the private/working reserves are set to reach operational minimums in a month or less at the current pace, the SPR will have to increase draw rate or there will have to be further demand destruction. If it goes to 7mn a week, below the 9.9mn peak draw recorded, that's 4.5 months. If it has to exceed peak rates as private/working reserves running out bites more than the optimistic numbers I'm using, or if China returns closer to pre-war oil imports, it will run out in 2-3 months. Before it runs out, the maximum draw rate will likely start falling - there are multiple facilities and some are already at or close to operational minimums - which will force demand destruction even before operational minimums.

The operational minimums for commercial crude inventories are estimated at 300-380mn barrels, with current inventories at . Weekly draw rate this week was 7.2mn just for the commercial inventories, and levels were ~400mn barrels. So there's 20-100mn barrels remaining in the commercial inventory. Even moreso than the SPR, this is uneven, and maximum draw rates will decrease as individual storage reaches minimums.

Other countries have also been tapping into their own strategic reserves. When those run dry, that will put more pressure on any remaining sources.

I am struggling to find updates on European reserve levels, but they must look similarly dire at this point.

Literally the dumbest president of all time.

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