U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve Hits Critical Low Amid High Gas Prices

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is facing a critical low point, threatening one of the few government levers to ease high gasoline prices.

Since the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran in late February, the Trump administration has tapped into the stockpile multiple times in an effort to boost the country's fuel supplies.

The reserve is now holding less than 285 million barrels of oil, a 30% drop in six months, which is lower than it has been since the early 1980s.

Samantha Gross, director of the energy security and climate initiative at the Brookings Institution, says that these rapid drawdowns threaten the salt caverns' structure: 'You can damage them by pumping too much out of them.'