The SPR Could Stay Half Empty Forever

With the amount of crude oil in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve now at multi-decade lows, the prospect of replenishing the reserves could be an arduous task according to some, and a cinch to others. The SPR isn’t empty, contrary to the hyperbolic headlines that have casually misrepresented the current state of the nation’s emergency oil stockpiles.

But it is fair to say that the amount of crude oil in the emergency stockpiles is the lowest it’s been in decades and decades—since 1983 to be precise—and it could…