Saturday March 12, 2011

I've Been Thinking:

There is talk about the cost of oil per barrel skyrocketing because of the unrest in the Middle East. There is even talk about tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR). And President Obama said that to keep prices down he might just do that and tap into the SPR.

That would not be wise.

The SPR is not a cushion to bolster the economy. The SPR is there for emergencies. The SPR needs to be there when there is a shutdown or near total oil embargo, when the United States can get oil no other way.

That's when the SPR will save us.

There are about 583 million barrels of oil in the SPR, that is its present capacity, although several years ago capacity was 727 million barrels.

The problem is that we can only access about 4.4 million barrels a day from the SPR - that might sound good, except that the United States consumes over 21 million/day.

That is why the SPR is for emergencies - not just for a rainy day.

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