Gyroscopic Investing

The government seems to be in the habit of "releasing" barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) regularly during crisises, wars, to reduce revenue shortfalls and/or upgrade the facilities.

Does "releasing" imply they're selling at market and getting full value?

And how in the hell does the oil even get into the SPR in the first place?  Is it free by graft or is it being paid for?  If the latter, Congress actually authorizes this as a line item?

There's over 695 million barrels in there!!!

When you say "in there", what exactly do you mean?

I always just figured that the SPR was like federal reserve notes--more of a bookkeeping thing without any independent reality to it.

MediumTex wrote: When you say "in there", what exactly do you mean?

I always just figured that the SPR was like federal reserve notes--more of a bookkeeping thing without any independent reality to it.

They have it spread around the country at various storage facilities so its more of a collective moniker, but they do own the storage facilities.

I've since learned that the government was actually buying the oil on the open market for 20 years until Clinton ended the practice in 1994.  No idea why.  But the average per barrel cost of those 865 million is about $29.

Later on in the late 90's the same Clinton and later Bush the II made the case for getting paid in terms of oil barrels directly from producers rather than USD income royalties, so that maxed out the SPR capacity.  There is no more room.