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 9 October, released 15 October): US commercial crude drew 8.6 million barrels to 415.6 million, about 3% below the five-year average. Distillate fell 2.5 million barrels to 102.6 million, about 12% below its five-year average, and gasoline rose 3.5 million. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve stands at 283.0 million barrels, the lowest since October 1982.
US commercial crude oil inventories sit at about 415.6 million barrels (excluding the SPR) — an 8.6 million barrel draw in the week to 9 October, while the Strategic Petroleum Reserve stands at about 283.0 million barrels, its lowest level since October 1982 and roughly 40% of its 714 million barrel capacity, unchanged on the week (EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report, w/e 9 October). The number that matters this week is not crude. US distillate stocks held near 102.6 million barrels, about 12% below their five-year average, and retail diesel, which set a record $6.5276 a gallon on 22 September, was $6.33 on 16 October (AAA), after the G7 release. Distillate draining faster than crude 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 on 23 September; Energy Secretary Chris Wright said nobody was considering a flat ban but discussed voluntary measures to keep more diesel in the US, and on 2 October the G7 agreed to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude. 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 9 October (EIA, released 15 October): US commercial crude drew 8.6 Mbbl to 415.6 Mbbl, far more than expected and partly attributed to hurricane-related disruption, leaving crude about 3% below its five-year average. The barrel is still splitting, and that is the part that matters. Gasoline rose 3.5 Mbbl to 208.3 Mbbl, about 4% below its five-year average, and distillate fell 2.5 Mbbl to 102.6 Mbbl, about 12% below its five-year average — the tightest part of the barrel. Total products supplied averaged 20.8 Mbbl/day over four weeks, up 2.1% year on year, with distillate demand at 3.8 Mbbl/day, up 5.2%. Distillate draining faster than crude is why US retail diesel set a record $6.5276 a gallon on 22 September and was $6.33 on 16 October, and why the EIA projects distillate stays below its five-year low through much of 2027. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve stands at 283.0 Mbbl, unchanged in the week, its lowest since October 1982 and about 40% of its 714 Mbbl authorized capacity; DOE has requested proposals for up to 40 Mbbl more, for delivery in November and December. On 2 October the G7 agreed through the IEA to release 100 Mbbl of diesel and crude from strategic reserves. The next EIA release is Wednesday 21 October at 10:30 ET (week ending 9 October; a day late after the Monday holiday). Previous week (w/e 18 September): crude +3.0 Mbbl to 426.4 Mbbl, distillate −0.4 Mbbl to 107.5 Mbbl.
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 0.9 Mbbl build; and distillate is 13% 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.