Global Oil Inventory Levels — US Crude, SPR & OECD Days of Cover
How much oil buffer stands between the Strait of Hormuz disruption and a pump-level shortage. US commercial crude, Cushing and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (EIA, weekly), plus OECD and European days of demand cover (IEA, monthly). Latest EIA weekly (w/e 18 September, released 23 September): US commercial crude BUILT 3.0 million barrels to 426.4 million, against a small draw expected — ending three consecutive weekly declines and leaving stocks about 2% above the five-year average. Distillate went the other way, falling 0.4 million barrels to 12% below its five-year average, and gasoline fell 1.7 million. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve stands at 284.96 million barrels (confirmed w/e 11 September), the lowest since 1982.
US commercial crude oil inventories sit at about 426.4 million barrels (excluding the SPR) — a 3.0 million barrel build in the week to 18 September, the first in four weeks, against a draw the market expected — while the Strategic Petroleum Reserve stands at about 285.0 million barrels, its lowest level since 1982 and roughly 40% of its 714 million barrel capacity, with weekly draws now slowed to about 0.4 million barrels (EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report; SPR confirmed for w/e 11 September). The number that matters this week is not crude. US distillate stocks fell again to 107.5 million barrels, 12% below their five-year average, and retail diesel set another record at $6.5276 a gallon on 22 September — up nearly a dollar in a month. Crude building while distillate drains is the whole diesel story in one table: the barrel is available, the refined product is not. Washington floated, then denied, a 90-day ban on diesel exports this week; Energy Secretary Chris Wright said nobody was considering a flat ban but discussed voluntary measures to keep more diesel in the US. A DOE spokesperson has told CNBC the reserve’s safe operating minimum is roughly 70 million barrels, distinct from the 252.4 million barrel statutory threshold that restricts certain limited drawdowns.
The US emergency oil reserve has fallen to its lowest level since 1982
Crude oil held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, in millions of barrels. Each point = the reserve's level at year-end (2026 = the week ending September 11). The reserve is an underground government stockpile drawn on only during supply emergencies.
How to read these levels
Oil inventory is the buffer between supply and demand. When a chokepoint like the Strait of Hormuz constrains crude flows, the shortfall is met first by drawing down stock — commercial tanks, the Cushing hub, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — before it ever reaches the pump. Watching that stock fall is watching the buffer being spent. The US numbers above are weekly and precise (from the EIA); the OECD and European figures are monthly and lagged (from the IEA), so they tell you the direction and the cover, not a daily level.
What the latest EIA week shows
Week ending 18 September (EIA, released 23 September): US commercial crude built 3.0 Mbbl to 426.4 Mbbl, against a draw of roughly 0.6 Mbbl the market expected — the first build in four weeks, after three consecutive draws that had taken stocks from 424.4 to 423.4 Mbbl, and enough to put crude about 2% above its five-year average. The barrel is still splitting, and that is the part that matters. Gasoline fell 1.7 Mbbl to 206.0 Mbbl, and distillate fell 0.4 Mbbl to 107.5 Mbbl, 12% below its five-year average — the tightest part of the barrel for the fifth straight month. Total products supplied, a proxy for US demand, averaged 20.6 Mbbl/day over four weeks, up 0.5% year on year, with gasoline demand at 8.8 Mbbl/day. Crude building while distillate drains is why US retail diesel set another record at $6.5276 a gallon on 22 September while Brent was spending five sessions falling, and why the EIA projects distillate stays below its five-year low through much of 2027. It is also why Washington floated a 90-day diesel export ban this week, which the White House then denied. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve stands at 284.96 Mbbl for the week ending 11 September, its lowest since 1982 and about 40% of its 714 Mbbl authorized capacity, having fallen roughly 128 Mbbl since early April; weekly draws have slowed to about 0.4 Mbbl. A figure of about 284.6 Mbbl for w/e 18 September is circulating in coverage that otherwise reports the API estimate and predates the EIA release, so GEF carries the confirmed 11 September figure until a clean print is available. Source discipline: the API estimate for the week to 18 September (crude +1.8 Mbbl, distillate −2.2 Mbbl / 13% below) differs materially from the EIA print. GEF publishes the EIA figures.
Europe's oil position and the 90-day rule
Europe is the more exposed region, and it is governed by a hard floor: under the EU's emergency oil stockholding rules, member states must hold the equivalent of around 90 days of net imports in strategic reserve. That obligation is the backstop — but the working buffer above it is thin. On some measures, jet and middle-distillate cover has slipped below the IEA's roughly 23-day comfort threshold, which is precisely the stress that surfaces on the shortages map as European jet-fuel and diesel strain. Europe gets a fuller per-country treatment on the gas side; on oil, the days-of-cover figure is the metric to watch.
What we track precisely — and what we don't
Honesty about sourcing is part of the point. Here is the line between the measured and the estimated:
- Precise & weekly: US commercial crude, Cushing, the SPR, gasoline and distillate — all from the EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report.
- Precise but monthly/lagged: OECD and EU commercial stocks and days of cover, from the IEA Oil Market Report.
- Qualitative only: crude on water (floating storage), ARA refined-product stocks in north-west Europe, and Chinese and Saudi domestic reserves. These are either paywalled or genuinely opaque, so we describe their direction in words rather than publish a precise number we cannot stand behind.
We do not show a per-facility "fill %" map for oil the way we do for EU gas, because no public feed publishes live per-site crude levels — a map of invented fills would look authoritative and be wrong. When a reliable per-site feed exists, we will add it.
Why it matters
Inventory cover is the countdown that connects the chokepoint to the checkout. A blocked strait does not cause a shortage on day one; it causes a drawdown, and the shortage arrives when the drawdown runs out of room. Today the buffer is uneven rather than uniformly thin. The SPR is at its lowest since 1982; commercial crude, by contrast, is about 2% above its five-year average after a 3.0 Mbbl build; and distillate is 12% below its five-year average with retail diesel at a record. The crude barrel is available and the refined product is not. The global product pool is under a second, separate pressure: Ukrainian drone strikes have repeatedly hit Russian refining — Reuters reported on 15 September that Kinef was shut and Volgograd and NORSI were running at about 25% of capacity, three of the six plants that make roughly half of Russia’s diesel. That tightens the same pool the US and Europe draw on, on top of the Hormuz-driven crude story above, and it is why Washington’s floated-then-denied diesel export ban mattered to Europe. That is why this page sits alongside the chokepoint transit data and the shortages map: one shows the disruption, one shows the buffer, and one shows where the buffer has already run out.