The White House is considering a release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as well as a ban on the export of oil products, according to remarks made by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. The measures have been proposed as potential options to soothe a tumultuous oil market.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was the result of the gas crisis of the 1970's, an attempt to equip the federal government with a means to prevent or at least relieve supply interruptions. Filled to near capacity just after September 11, the SPR has been "uncapped" occasionally to raise funds or to alleviate short-term disruptions (such as production shutdowns from hurricanes). The last, and only, large-scale use of the SPR was in 2011 by the Obama Administration, a similar effort to stabilize the market.
The prompt to "uncap" the reserve in this instance appears to have been Biden Administration National Security Advisor James Sullivan's recent rebuff by OPEC+. Sullivan had been attempting to convince OPEC+ to increase production more quickly but found representatives unreceptive.
"Everybody was hoping that there would be additional supply made available so that prices would not be jacked up," commented Granholm.
A release from the SPR would direct add to the domestic oil supply to bring prices down. An export ban, also being considered by the Biden administration, would indirectly add to the supply by constraining sales to domestic clients.
Beyond supply, oil markets (like most industries) face a growing logistics crisis, the result of an already strained global network inching closer towards its breaking point amid the pandemic. A slice of this wider crisis was captured in the U.K.'s disastrous gas shortage; an industry plagued by terrible entry-level working conditions for abysmal pay, and Boomer/Gen X drivers aging out with few Millenial/Gen Z showing interest in replacing them.