by John Thorpe, Senior Broker

Where is the SPR and how much Sweet Crude do we have? Energy futures contracts have taken our breath away and our bank accounts over the past month. Volatility is directly correlated to levels of uncertainty. A more certain supply and demand futures tend to reduce Volatility greatly. Higher price volatility has historically been linked to greater supply and demand instability. The Crude oil futures market has seen extraordinary volatility over the last month and for a variety of reasons. One recent reason for the downdraft in Crude oil futures prices has been the proclamation from the Biden administration that oil will be released from the SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve). I have read a number of articles from a number of well respected national news outlets and they all provide a little different information about the size of the reserves and the amount of the limits to daily withdrawals.. You too may have come across some of the confusion. The U.S. Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management is our entity in charge of the SPR, a branch of the U.S. Department of Energy and they are responsible for the 4 underground storage locations and recordkeeping. Crude oil traders keeping score some of the rules of the game of the SPR should know, there are limits to daily withdrawals and the holdings are actually quite a mix of sweet crude and sour, all with different industrial uses.

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