The move is reportedly being considered with an eye toward refilling emergency reserves further depleted amid the war on Iran
The administration of US President Donald Trump is considering extracting oil from beneath military bases to refill the depleted Strategic Petroleum Reserve, according to Bloomberg.
Created in the mid-1970s, the SPR is an emergency stockpile meant to alleviate oil price spikes in times of supply disruptions.
Global oil prices have soared above $100 a barrel in the wake of the US-Israeli aggression against Iran that began in late February, as Tehran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to “enemy ships.” Before the war broke out, the strategically important waterway accounted for roughly 20% of global crude trade.
While Trump has downplayed the impact of the Strait of Hormuz blockade on the US economy, gasoline prices topped $4.50 a gallon this week on average for the first time since 2022.
On Thursday, Bloomberg, citing an anonymous source, claimed that the Trump administration is looking into “innovative” ways to replenish the national emergency reserves, including the use of Department of Defense sites.
Speaking at a forum hosted by the Wall Street Journal in mid-April, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that “we are going to do pragmatic things [regarding] energy resources” on federally owned lands.
“We have military bases or facilities that are in the middle of oil fields, but there’s no development under those resources. That’s crazy. It’s right there,” he said.
“We need creative ways to fill the strategic petroleum reserve all the way up,” Wright added.
According to Bloomberg, drilling under military bases is unlikely to have any immediate impact on energy prices, but it could allow the US government to directly own the extracted oil instead of purchasing crude from private producers to replenish reserves.
It was not immediately clear which sites were under consideration, Bloomberg noted, adding that last September, the Trump administration sold drilling rights for oil and gas beneath nearly 2,000 acres at Louisiana’s Barksdale Air Force Base, which hosts B-52 strategic bombers.
In March, Trump authorized the Department of Energy to release 172 million barrels from the SPR throughout this year and into 2027, in a bid to mitigate soaring energy prices.
Under the scheme, crude is being loaned to energy companies, which are to return the “borrowed oil to the DOE with additional barrels as a premium” at a later date.
The administration of ex-President Joe Biden, too, tapped into the SPR following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 when oil prices skyrocketed.
According to DOE estimates, the national emergency reserves currently hold approximately 415 million barrels, the lowest level since the mid-1980s.
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