Bryan Mound Strategic Preserve in Freeport, Texas
The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, SPR, consists of four major storage sites—Bryan Mound and Big Hill in Texas and West Hackberry and Bayou Choctaw in Louisiana—that utilize salt caverns for crude oil storage. These caverns, created in the 1970s following the Arab Oil Embargo, were designed to withstand roughly five or six cycles of oil injection and withdrawal before requiring significant maintenance or replacement due to erosion of the cavern walls caused by pumping water to displace oil.
In an interview on CNBC's “Power Lunch” on Monday, April 28, 2025, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright explained that President Biden’s use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a political tool to reduce gasoline prices before the 2023 mid-term elections was a bad decision that caused severe damage to the Strategic Petroleum ReserveReserves'caverns, which are now undergoing repairs to repair the damage:
CNBC: Is the price right enough, pun intended I suppose Mr. Secretary, to refill the petroleum reserve right now?
Secretary Wright: Oh, absolutely. We are refilling the reserve now, and we will continue to refill the reserve the whole time I am in office. That was such an irresponsible action to drain that reserve so quickly for electoral reasons and, in fact, it was drained so fast, it did some damage to the facilities, so right now we can only fill two of the major salt caverns we have. So we are doing repair work on two and slowly refilling the other two, and I’m trying to get some funds from Congress that will give us a longer-term runway to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at the fastest rate we can.
My Take
The damage the Biden Administration caused to the United States, its energy industry, and energy infrastructure will take years to repair. President Trump’s choice for Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, is working hard to repair the damage done by the previous administration and reset US energy policy. If the Presidential election had not gone as it did, I shudder to think about where the energy industry and this country would be. Luckily, the US has regained its position as the world’s energy superpower.
President Trump and his administration have accomplished an unbelievable number of energy policy resets and initiatives in the last 100 days, but there is much more to be done in the next 45 months.
Thank you for reading “Thoughts about Energy and Economics.” This publication is reader-supported, so please “like” it, share it with friends and colleagues, and become a paid subscriber. Your support is greatly appreciated!
Share this post