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Strategic Petroleum Reserves by Country

Updated August 31, 2026

There is no complete, current, public, apples-to-apples inventory of every country's strategic petroleum reserve, and this page does not invent one. The measures that do exist answer different questions in different units: the United States reports its Strategic Petroleum Reserve weekly, at 289.7 million barrels in the week ending August 21, 2026 (EIA); 27 of 27 EU countries report emergency stocks monthly in thousand tonnes (Eurostat, newest observation June 2026); and IEA members are assessed in days of net imports against a 90-day obligation. Each measure is shown separately below, and none of them can be summed into a world total.

The United States: tracked weekly

The U.S. reserve is the largest government-owned emergency crude stockpile with weekly public reporting: 289.7 million barrels in the week ending August 21, 2026. The U.S. SPR tracker carries the full weekly history since 1982, the 2026 drawdown timeline, storage sites and drawdown capability.

IEA members: days of net imports

The International Energy Agency assesses member stockholding as days of net imports, against each member's 90-day obligation. Qualifying stocks can include government reserves, mandated industry stocks, refined products and stocks held abroad, so IEA days are not a government-crude barrel count and cannot be compared line-by-line with the figures above or below. The current country table is published in the IEA's Oil Stocks of IEA Countries tool. Net exporters with no stockholding obligation are not applicable, not zero.

A country-level days-of-cover chart is deferred until an official IEA export route exists; the IEA tool was verified unavailable to automated retrieval on August 30, 2026. This page links the live tool rather than transcribing it.

EU countries: emergency stocks in thousand tonnes

EU members hold emergency oil stocks under Directive 2009/119/EC and report them to Eurostat monthly, in thousand tonnes of total oil and petroleum products (crude plus refined products combined). Tonnes of a mixed crude-and-product total cannot be converted to barrels with one density factor, so this table stays in the reported unit. Each row carries its own observation month; reporting lags differ by country.

EU emergency stocks (Eurostat series nrg_stk_oilm, stock type STKCL_EUE, product O4000), each country at its latest populated month. "Lagging" marks observations more than 4 months behind the newest (June 2026). Stocks held abroad under bilateral agreements are counted by the holding arrangement Eurostat records, so rows must not be summed across countries.

Why these numbers cannot be merged

• Government vs. industry stocks. The U.S. figure is government-owned crude. EU emergency stocks and IEA days include mandated industry and commercial stocks.
• Crude vs. refined products. The U.S. SPR holds crude oil; the EU total mixes crude and products; IEA days convert products to crude equivalent.
• Inventory vs. capacity vs. tickets. Reported stocks are barrels and tonnes in storage, not storage capacity and not ticket/option arrangements to buy stocks held by others.
• Barrels and tonnes vs. days. Days of net imports depend on a country's import level, so a country's days can change with no change in its stocks.
• Domestic vs. abroad. Some countries hold part of their obligation in other countries' territory under bilateral agreements.
• Strategic stocks vs. proved reserves. None of these figures are oil reserves in the ground.

See also the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve tracker, maritime oil chokepoints, Strait of Hormuz oil flows, and oil price shocks since 1973.

Sources: Eurostat nrg_stk_oilm (EU emergency stocks, monthly, reused with attribution per the Eurostat reuse policy); EIA series WCSSTUS1 (U.S. SPR, weekly, public domain); DOE SPR Quick Facts; IEA Oil Stocks of IEA Countries (linked, not reproduced). Every figure carries its own observation date. See methodology.