The U.S. government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is at its lowest level since 1983 as inventories that were already low before the Iran war come under increasing pressure. That is the lowest level in the EIA's weekly data on SPR stocks since January 1983. Inventories had been around 600 million barrels at the start of 2022 and fell to 375 million barrels by the end of the year. They hit a recent peak of over 415 million barrels in February, before the latest round of drawdowns began in March. Currently, the SPR has a congressionally-authorized maximum of about 714 million barrels of oil, while its highest ever inventory was 726.6 million barrels in December 2009 when it had an authorized capacity of 727 million barrels.