Bryan Mound storage facility in Texas is is one of four Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) sites in the U.S. that are used as a first line of defence against an interruption in petroleum supplies.
| Photo Credit: AFP
The United States will release 172 million barrels of oil from its strategic petroleum reserve in a bid to reduce oil prices that have soared due to supply shocks from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Wednesday (March 11, 2026).
Mr. Wright said the release is part of a broader release of 400 million barrels of oil agreed to by the 32-nation International Energy Agency earlier in the day.
He said the release will begin next week and will take approximately 120 days to deliver.
Earlier during an interview on Wednesday (March 11, 2026) U.S. President Donald Trump was asked about tapping the reserve and said, “Well, we’ll do that and then we’ll fill it up.”
“Right now we’ll reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices down,” he told WKRC Local 12 in Cincinnati. He hadn’t specified how many barrels of oil the U.S. would release.
Explained | What is Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
Mr. Trump frequently criticised the administration of Joe Biden for tapping the reserve to try and bring down gas prices.
With inputs from Reuters, AP
Published – March 12, 2026 03:28 am IST
