Limitations
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is exclusively a crude petroleum reserve, not a stockpile of refined petroleum fuels, such as gasoline, diesel and kerosene. Although there are small-scale (2,000,000 barrels) heating oil reserves in Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey under the aegis of the Department of Energy (DOE), the federal government maintains no gasoline reserves on anything like the scale of the SPR. Consequently, while the US enjoys some protection from disruptions in oil supplies, it would have to depend on other stockpiling members of the International Energy Agency for relief from any major disruption to refinery operations. Since no new refineries have been constructed in the US for thirty years, there is little excess refining capacity. This was illustrated during Hurricane Katrina, when many of the Gulf coast oil refining complexes were disrupted for some time.
There have been suggestions that the DOE should stockpile both gasoline and jet fuel, to rectify this weakness. Some countries and zones, such as Australia, have a strategic reserve of both petroleum and petroleum products. In some cases, this includes a strategic reserve of jet fuel.
The former Secretary of Energy, Samuel Bodman, has said the Department will consider refined products as part of the expansion of between 1 billion and 1.5 billion barrels (240,000,000 m3).
Read more about this topic: Strategic Petroleum Reserve (United States)
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